


Wild-Type

by merkase



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Courtship, Cultural Differences, Dragon!Levi, Dragons, Fighting Ring, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nonbinary Hange Zoë, Past Abuse, Past Neglect, Plot Driven, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Tags updated as story progresses, Violence, degrading situations, detective!erwin, discussion of euthanasia, dragon breeding, dragon fighting, dragons in human form, dragons treated as pets, endurance racing, grievous bodily harm, interspecies(ish), legal ownership of sentient beings, past breeding (clinical and unerotic but non-con if you squint), police investigations, rude language
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-03
Updated: 2017-10-04
Packaged: 2018-04-24 15:51:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 42
Words: 238,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4925695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merkase/pseuds/merkase
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erwin Smith’s dragon-fighting bust is front-page news. He has several key players in custody and enough evidence to put the owner away for the rest of his unnatural life. All Erwin has to do is convince a violent, ill-tempered drake to give him a statement—preferably without killing anyone, burning Erwin’s house down or falling in love with him. But when the federal government shows up demanding that Erwin turn Levi over for immediate euthanasia, the only way to protect his witness may end up killing them both.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

They arrived in the dead hours after midnight when nothing else in the world seemed to be moving. There was no electric fanfare, no red-blue-red-blue regalia to announce their passage up the narrow lane. One crooked mailbox promised them a house, but little else. Rusted out and overgrown, the wooden post spotted with mildew, it was the kind of mailbox a person would use if they didn’t mind reading damp, insect-nibbled letters. Last week's rain still had not drained from the deep ruts along the driveway and it stank with stagnation, flashing like veins of fool's gold beneath each set of dimmed-down running lights.

Altogether, there was little reason for a sane person in average circumstances to venture down to the end of such a drive. In that sense, Marty Branch had done exceptionally well with the property.

"I will be billing your department with the charges for treating my coccydynia, Erwin," Hanji announced from the back seat. "Expect it within the next few weeks."

"That sounds expensive," the detective replied. "You might better get out and walk before we break the department's budget."

It was habit that kept Mike's eyes on the road, not any real ability to see what was in front of him. The windshield was as black as a scrying mirror and Mike was using the SUV's tires to feel carefully along the ruts in the road. "I broke the bone in my ass once," he told them gruffly. "They took x-rays and ran tests and ultimately gave me an ice pack and told me to just move from one ass half to the other. That was the most expensive bag of ice I ever bought."

"Some diagnostic procedures are completely baffling to me," Hanji agreed. "They did something very similar with my knees." The doctor paused, though, and looked over at their neighbor. "Are you alright, Nanaba? We're discussing Mike's ass. I'm surprised you don't have anything to add."

"It doesn't need anything." Nanaba’s reply was immediate, but it lacked enough energy that Erwin actually turned in his seat to look at her.

"Do you get motion sickness?" Hanji asked. "This driveway could do it to the best of us." But Nanaba didn’t give an answer. Her posture was impossible to make heads or tails of in the near-absolute darkness and Erwin wasn’t sure if that was her body curled forward in the seat behind Mike or if his imagination was filling in the gaps his senses had left.

Mike attempted to glance back, but he accomplished very little apart from banging their tires into the side of a rut. "Nana?"

"I'm okay," she replied slowly. "I just feel ... weird. Uneasy maybe, like something is wrong."

"What sort of wrong?” Hanji asked. “Is it more _Friday The 13th_ or _Trauma: Life In The ER?_ ”

_“What?”_

“Your appendix hasn’t ruptured, has it?” Hanji clarified impatiently. Erwin hadn’t been aware that dragons possessed appendices, but if anyone in that car could be expected to know for sure, it was Hanji. “What are your symptoms?”

“No, Jesus, it’s nothing like that. It isn’t medical. I just feel unsafe or something, I think.”

“Oh. Psychology.” It was incredible how Hanji’s tone could shift that way, moving from airy to leaden in a breath. “You feel that way because you know where you’re going.”

Nanaba shifted uncomfortably in her seat, something that was more audible than visible. “Maybe, yeah. I guess.”

None of them seemed willing to reply to that. They allowed silence to stretch along the final yards of driveway, broken only by the background hum of Erwin’s reliable engine and the uneasy sloshing of heavy tires through standing water. It was a long time before Hanji admitted, “I feel a little like that, too.”

“Mike, cut the lights,” Erwin spoke into the sour air. “We’re running out of cover.”

“Yeah.”

The other detective reached up and turned the little dial until Erwin’s SUV went out like a candle, its rearview mirror darkening as one by one the officers behind them followed suit. That was all the light they had. Only the tired farmhouse remained, guiding the short convoy forward by the off-yellow glow of its gritty windows.

"How long have you had this property under surveillance?" Hanji asked, leaning forward over the shoulder of Erwin's seat to squint doubtfully into the gloom. "In the photos you showed me, I didn’t see any sign that dragons are being kept here, especially dragons with unsuppressed flame bladders."

"They've been careful not to leave anything obvious on the outside," Mike assured them, "but there are dragons here. We've pulled financial records, tax records, flown a thermal camera over. People have reported heavy smoke in the area. Once a month the property sees a sudden influx of vehicle traffic."

"We've known there was a ring," Erwin added, "but we've been hearing about that for years. This is the first time we've had enough evidence to get a search warrant."

"I'm sure you wouldn't be here if your evidence wasn't solid," Hanji told them both sincerely. "I just thought it was strange not to see a manure pile or any transport trailers. Though I suppose they could be stashing those in the woods somewhere. Thick as these trees are, you could hide plenty in there."

Nanaba sat up straight in her seat, her hand flying to the door handle so suddenly that when Erwin turned to catch the movement he almost opened his mouth and told her not to dive out. " _Fuck me._ That's what it is!”

"What? Bodies?" Hanji turned their head to consider the possibility, gazing into the wall of darkness just beyond the first line of trees. "I might hide a body in there," they decided. "Assuming I didn't have a large barrel and a colony of dermestid beetles on hand. And assuming it isn't my own property, of course. Only a complete idiot would--"

"No, it isn't hypothetical," Nanaba interrupted sharply. "That’s what’s wrong. There are dead dragons here."

Hanji fell back in their seat, forgetting completely about the world outside their window as they reached down and yanked their mobile phone from a bag at their feet. "You're experiencing the flight instinct?” They breathed. “Jesus. Pardon me." Hanji turned the lit screen so it illuminated Nanaba's pinched face, where the color was draining rapidly from her cheeks. The dragon turned away, but Hanji had seen all they needed. "Your pupils have dilated. What about your heart rate? Respiration? Mike, you may need to stop the car."

"Don't. It isn't that bad."

It looked like it was that bad. Hanji’s phone wasn’t pointed directly at Nanaba any longer, but Erwin had a decent read on the dragon's curled posture, the way she trembled, right on the leading edge of panic. He didn't have to see the detail in her expression to know that her jaw was clenched. He could hear that strain in her tone. She had deteriorated alarmingly fast, moving from apprehensive to terrified in the space of a heartbeat.

"The pheromone has a compounding effect that will get worse as you breathe more of it in,” Hanji insisted quickly. “I'm concerned about your blood pressure, Nanaba. Trying to resist the flight response has been known to cause heart failure in susceptible genetic lines."

"If you need to leave, Nana, I can flag candidates for the preserve on my own.” Mike raised his eyebrows in the rearview. “You’re too young to be developing heart problems.”

"Exactly," Nanaba told them stubbornly. "I’m too young. I’ll acclimate to it before I keel over."

“Have you ever gone through this before?” Hanji asked doubtfully. “You can’t have or you’d have recognized it immediately. So you don’t really know how it will effect--”

“My bloodline is fine,” Nanaba snapped, flexing her feet like she wanted to draw her knees up to her chest. “They’d talk and talk about it, how brilliant my breeder was. They didn’t shut up.” By the time she finished, she was gasping, Hanji eyeing her with more than a little concern.

“Nanaba,” the doctor said quietly. “Do your chest or arms hurt?”

“What, like I'm having a heart attack? _No!_ ”

Mike's lips pressed thin, his movements stilted when he reached forward to flip the AC over to recirculate. "Take slow breaths," he said tightly. "Don't hyperventilate."

"Would it help you to breathe through your mouth?" Erwin asked, looking over at Mike since Hanji was directly behind him, swathed in shadows.

"I don’t know," Mike replied. "I’ve never seen the flight response in person. Dragons aren’t usually blockheaded enough to hang around once they realize what it is they’re sensing." He scowled pointedly into the rearview mirror, but no answer was forthcoming unless Nanaba’s low, irritated growl qualified as a reply.

“Pheromones aren’t like smells,” Hanji supplied quickly. “It all depends upon the Jacobson’s organ. Humans only have ducts in their nasal cavities, whereas snakes and lizards only have them in the roofs of their mouths. Dragons, however, have _both_ connections, so they can detect pheromones whether they’re breathing through their nose or their mouth."

"Fuck you, Darwin," the dragon muttered.

"Here." Hanji bent to reach back into their bag, coming up with the respirator that the police station had equipped them with. "Try this. It should filter out the worst of it."

"What pheromone is this?" Erwin asked, frowning thoughtfully at the respirator that changed hands quickly once Nanaba realized how much it could help her. "Dragons can’t tolerate the scent of their dead?”

“The pheromones,” Hanji corrected. “Many creatures use chemical alarms. Ants, wasps, sharks, dragons. When one dragon dies it warns others away from the site of its death for up to several weeks following the event. In that way, one death can prevent many others. It’s powerful and basic and right now it’s sending a message straight to Nanaba’s hypothalamus, which processes fear, telling her to run as fast and as far as she can from here.”

“I see,” Erwin said. “So the stress could kill her.”

“Something like that. Is the respirator working?”

Nanaba paused. She hadn’t even bothered looping the straps around her skull, just pressed the mask over her nose and mouth and sucked in a deep breath, her eyes sliding shut. She didn’t bother opening them to respond, only offering them a tentative nod, then a shake of the head and a hand motion that indicated so-so.

"We should have had you in one of those before we started down the driveway," Erwin said. "It stands to reason there would be bodies on site."

“I apologize for my part,” Hanji sighed. “I didn’t think about it. The flight response isn’t a common problem in civilized society.”

"Is she alright, Hanji?" Mike asked, unable to get a good look at Nanaba from the driver seat.

“It’s hard to tell in this light,” Hanji answered honestly, ignoring Nanaba’s furtive nod. “She isn’t shaking as badly.” They’d hit the end of the drive and Mike applied his foot to the break, rolling them to a very careful stop at the mouth of the dark lane. He tried turning in his seat, but didn’t get far. Nanaba reached out and found his stubbled jaw with the backs of her fingers, but Erwin’s attention was on the tableau in front of them.

It was like something out of a country song--a quaint little farmhouse set amongst perfect, rolling fields, pastures divided by lengths of simple fencing. The U-shaped stable loomed farther back, blending with the dark outline of its smaller outbuilding, which was almost invisible at this distance. The scene was almost cozy. At night there was no sickly cast to the house, its peeling paint and rotten siding receding into the hazy darkness, the splintering wooden fences appearing whole and unblemished. The grounds were silent, unassuming.

Erwin reached for the switch on his portable radio. "Nanaba has verified that there are deceased dragons in the area.”

"I may have visual confirmation of living ones," one of the younger officers announced from the car immediately behind theirs. Mikasa's voice was steady, lacking the note of giddy triumph that the younger officers all shared. She would rise quickly, Erwin was sure. "Thermal is picking up readings in all three buildings. One on the second floor of the house and many in the other two. I can't tell how many individuals total. One of the cars parked by the outbuilding is still hot, but the driver is not outside."

"Anything else?" Erwin asked.

"The exterior is clear, Sir."

“The signature in the house probably belongs to Mrs. Branch. Jean, don’t abandon your wits, but make sure your team isn’t rough with her either. She probably doesn’t understand what her son has been up to.”

“Are we putting her in handcuffs or inviting her to bingo?” Ymir asked drily.

“I trust Jean’s judgment on that one.”

"The outbuilding you showed me will be their breeding facility," Hanji predicted, leaning back around Erwin to look in that direction despite there being little to see. It was the faintest assembly of shadows and barely that. "They'd keep their breeding females away from all the aggression. Stress hormones are linked to high rates of miscarriage. It could be a medical facility as well if they bother with such things, or maybe some combination of the two. That's where you'll find the ones that can be saved, especially if the breeders are surrogates."

"Surrogacy?" Mike questioned, obviously reluctant to give the heads of this operation so much credit. "There's a lot of sophistication involved in that."

" _Necessary_ sophistication," Hanji assured them. "Dragons obviously don't reproduce freely. A female will not become fertile outside of a completed courtship, which takes time. When you raise dragons to kill their own kind you're also making it impossible for them to reproduce naturally. That’s because they've torn each other apart before they can even recognize they're compatible. If you want the meanest, nastiest genes from the strongest, most aggressive fighters you have, the only way you're making that happen is with a Petri dish and a surrogate mother."

"That would mean that we're looking for a scientist as well," Erwin said, directing his thoughtful scowl towards Mike, who looked faintly blindsided himself by the potential they'd just been offered.

"And a lab. It won't be a private lab either unless they're incredibly well-funded. Likely, you're looking for someone who already has access to that kind of equipment and is being paid under the table for side projects. I could make you a list of local facilities if you'd like."

"I would appreciate that," Erwin told Hanji. "Tracking down a reproductive scientist would be much simpler than looking blindly for a ringleader we know nothing about."

"Happy to help," the doctor said, dismissing it with a wave. "My guess is, you'd find them at a facility that handles assisted human reproduction. The process isn't that different across species and the equipment would all be there. In any case, if they're using surrogates, which you can verify easily with a simple genetic test, it's likely that you can save some of the adult dragons in addition to the young."

"Don't get your hopes up," Mike warned Nanaba when she leaned forward in her own seat, silent through the respirator, but clearly interested. "The courts may order us to destroy all of the adults, fighters or not. My father was involved in a similar case when I was in high school. The police broke up a fighting ring and found a breeding operation on site. I don't know if the mothers were surrogates, but Dad was only allowed to take the young."

"Well," Hanji huffed. "Your father didn't have me there arguing his case."

Despite the tension in her face, Nanaba made a weak, muffled sound that must have been a laugh.

They sat there watching the property for a little longer before Erwin waved his partner forward, as sure as he could be that everyone on the grounds was settled and accounted for. "We're moving," he warned the others. "Team leaders take command of your units."

Erwin had split their operation into three separate subtasks, assigning one team to each of the buildings. His own, larger unit would clear the stable, leaving Jean responsible for the house and Mikasa for the outbuilding. Both radioed their affirmatives and changed over to their team's frequencies to deliver their own instructions. Mike sped up once they broke the treeline, exchanging stealth for speed as soon as they were out in the open. With a bone-jarring lurch, Mike jumped the ruts and turned them off the driveway completely, cutting straight across an open field towards the stable--it's long, weathered side pale and vulnerable like the belly of a beached whale.

Sasha and Connie followed Mike closely--perhaps a bit too closely--bumping and jerking over the uneven terrain somewhere just off their right bumper. It was a violent experience even in Erwin's dark SUV with its four-wheel drive engaged. Erwin couldn't guess how the others were  
faring in their squad cars, skipping across the field like stones on a lake.

"Yee fuckin haw," Reiner called, peeling away towards the opposite end of the U-shaped stable. He and Bertholdt would ensure that no one left through the back while Erwin and Mike worked their way towards Sasha and Connie, each pair starting at an opposite end and meeting in the approximate middle. "Building looks dark, Detective," the boy continued, his voice full of adrenaline. "You think anyone's home?"

"It isn't dark." It was a difficult thing to see through their own reeling windshields, but Erwin had been looking for it, so he managed to catch a glimpse of the thin strips of light that defined a windowsill, then another. A door. "They have the windows blacked out."

"Aw hell," Hanji muttered from the back. "They're not ventilating the stable?"

"If they are, it isn't through the windows."

"That means the air in there won't be safe to breathe," Hanji warned them. "Don't even try going without your respirators."

"That would affect the dragons, too, wouldn't it?" Erwin asked, pulling the small piece of equipment from beneath his seat and pulling the strap over his head so it rested heavily against his collarbone until he needed it. He wouldn’t risk putting it over his face in their current situation lest he end up with a broken nose.

"Yes, it would affect the dragons,” Hanji assured him, pausing with an expressive wince as they hit a particularly nasty bump. “They'll have acclimated to it some. Dragons are … remarkably adaptable creatures--Jesus, Mike--But they can't be in ideal condition. Likely, we'll see a lot of … respiratory infections ... buildup of fluid in the lungs, pneumonitis." Then, for the first time in their life, Hanji seemed relieved to stop talking.

Mike turned in his seat the instant he threw the SUV into park. "How are you doing, Nana?" She really wasn't looking so hot. Her eyes were watery when they swiveled around to look at Mike, her body so tense that it shook. "Is the smell that bad?"

"It's pretty fuckin ripe."

Hanji opened their mouth--probably to remind them that it was a pheromone and not a scent--but they closed it again with a sigh, rubbing their shoulder where the seatbelt had not been kind to their bony frame.

"You're about to miss your last chance to leave for a while," Mike warned the dragon quickly.

"I'm not about to miss _anything_ ," the dragon insisted, pulling the respirator just far enough from her face to let her voice out. "Stop trying to change my mind."

They stared at each other for a couple beats, communicating something in the strange, silent language of couples. But there was no time and Mike was forced to break eye contact first so he could take the respirator that Hanji offered him. "Stay in the car with Hanji until all of the arrests are made," he ordered gruffly. It was the only thing he could do.

Nanaba snorted softly, leaning her clammy forehead against the shoulder of Mike's seat. "I may need to get out and puke."

The detective reached up and pushed his fingers into her damp hair, his expression pinched and unhappy. "Just stay behind the door so you don't get shot, okay?"

"Not a problem."

Erwin and Mike left their doors cracked rather than slamming them shut, approaching the stable quickly once they were out in the open. They’d put a little distance between the SUV and the building in case there was someone inside to hear them pull up, but despite the tension prickling along Erwin's spine, they were neither shot at nor called out, making it all the way to the exterior wall without incident. Down by the outbuilding, Mikasa was already moving her team. Erwin let their radio chatter slide harmlessly into the back of his awareness, focusing on his own immediate responsibilities.

"We're in position," Sasha reported quietly from the other side.

"Braun?"

"Almost ... Yeah. Now we are."

Erwin glanced sideways at Mike, who tipped his chin agreeably. That was everyone. He leaned forward, peering cautiously around the corner where he found one of the large double doors standing partially open, casting both light and smell into the hazy night. Even from this distance, Erwin's nose could detect organic waste--ammonia and decay, something reminiscent of raw sewage, of bodies living on top of each other. The detective drew his head back quickly.

"Respirators on," Erwin told them, reaching up for the device around his neck. "And then we begin." He slipped around the corner like a shadow, knowing that Mike would be right there behind him. They'd worked in tandem as partners long before they were officially assigned to one another--something the precinct still managed to find new ways to tease them for, even after all these years.

"Are you serious," Jean muttered across the coms. "These dumb fuckers left the back door hanging wide open. Might as well lay out a welcome mat and put the cookies in the oven."

"Did you not get a welcome mat?" Ymir asked blandly. "We got one."

"Was there a largeish detective shield on it that said 'I heart police officers?'"

"I don't know. Why don't you walk around to the front of the house and check?"

"Guys," Krista sighed. "We're probably distracting everyone ..."

Somewhere just past Erwin's shoulder, Mike breathed a soft snort, but both of them were too close to the door to risk speaking. They'd have to let Krista rein in the others. When Erwin eased his head around the open door to look down the long, empty aisle, he frowned. "Clear," he told Mike in an undertone, nudging the door open with his foot. This end of the stable appeared to be abandoned all the way up to the corner where it bent sharply into the next aisle.

"Maybe we picked a slow night," the other man offered doubtfully.

"I hope not." What they needed was information--enough to track down the heads of this operation so they could cut them off. Erwin was willing to bet this wasn’t the only property they were keeping. He wanted as many perpetrators as he could take.

The detectives moved so quickly through their half of the building that Erwin only registered _no humans, no humans_ , poking the barrel of his gun into each stall and meeting each set of startled, elliptical pupils before moving swiftly along. A tack room, _no humans_ , a feed room, _no humans_. Office, closet, _clear_.

"We have Mrs. Alzheimer's in custody." Erwin suspected that Ymir was uncharacteristically ruffled until she added, "This soft-brained lunatic wants to know if we're here for the goddamned garden party. If she calls me Barbara one more fucking time, Detective, I'm shooting her and calling it self defence." Then Erwin was certain that she was ruffled.

Indeed, he could hear the old woman babbling happily in the background while Jean howled with laughter, Krista's sweet voice replying pleasantly in kind. At least the little blonde was on hand to work with Mrs. Branch. Erwin had assigned her to Jean’s team knowing that her patience would come in handy.

"The house is clear," Jean added, his voice sounding strange. Probably, he was trying to keep his shit together long enough to deliver his report. "Krista and Marco are working on getting Mrs. Branch down to a squad car, no handcuffs necessary. Little Branch is still unaccounted for."

"Understood. Join us at the stable when she is secure."

"Roger that, Sir."

Erwin and Mike did meet Sasha and Connie somewhere in the middle of the stable, all four of them empty-handed and uneasy, their stinging eyes watering as they rejected the potent chemical cocktail in the air. The four of them looked around at each other until Erwin pointed the younger pair up a narrow flight of stairs to the top floor. Erwin and Mike lingered at the bottom with their weapons drawn, listening to the radio chatter they'd been ignoring for the most part. It sounded like they had multiple arrests down at the outbuilding, but Erwin wouldn't radio in until they were ready to report, not wanting to distract anyone if the situation down there was tense.

"Looks like everyone was down the hill," Mike murmured. "Hanji, how is Nana?"

"She's ah ..." there was a brief, hesitant pause. "She's vomiting, but she's also threatening to put me on a spit if I tell you she's unwell, so I don't believe she's about to go into cardiac arrest."

"If she were, I don't think we'd know it until it happened," Mike sighed.

"Mm. Moblit is that way too. He'll hide it when he feels unwell. He had me convinced once that he was perfectly fine when in fact he had a severe case of the stomach flu. I only realized it once I caught it too. He says he isn't tough, but that bug knocked me flat on my ass and he was walking around acting like nothing was awry. Others have done studies on this behavior, if you're interested in hearing about them."

"In a little while," Erwin said carefully, not wanting to get Hanji started on a tangent while there was still a very real danger of being shot at. "Tell us on the way home."

Mike moaned pitifully.

"Detective," Mikasa reported after a few more moments. "We have three arrests down here--three employees and a client."

"Is Marty Branch among them?" Erwin wanted to know. He was keen on getting the son, who would have to interact with the ringleader on a regular basis seeing as one of his operations was being housed on Marty's property. A great deal of planning and coordination had gone into this setup--continued to go into it. There was no way the head wouldn’t want to supervise that directly.

"He is, Sir. The other two are nobodies as far as we can tell. Just the night shift."

"And the client?"

"He won’t say why he’s here,” Mikasa answered. “He clammed up as soon as we asked. It looks like it could be solicitation. Maybe worse.”

“The females down here seem off,” Armin added. “They aren’t very responsive to us. They’re all in their dragon forms and they’re lethargic like they’ve been sedated.”

“The _gravid_ females are sedated?” Hanji asked, barely waiting for Armin to confirm it before they continued. "That is astronomical risk to the developing young. As of right now, we have not found or developed a sedative that is safe to use on a gravid female. They would know that.”

"They may be offsetting that risk with numbers," Armin guessed. "There are more females here than they need to supply one fighting ring, even a large one. While it's possible they're distributing them to other locations, it would be safer and easier for them to breed for each site. Transporting an illegal dragon without being noticed is no easy feat."

"Second floor is clear!" Sasha shouted down to them. "Their stable is now our stable."

Connie poked his head around the corner, though when he spoke, it was through the radio. "Add an illegal drug charge to that list you got going, Detective. There's enough up here to ride out a nuclear war. I can't even identify some of this stuff."

"Statistically, illegal activities tend to cluster." Hanji sounded distracted, though, like their heart wasn't in the delivery. "Where you have one, you have several."

"Well these guys got the whole sampler platter," Ymir replied immediately, her tone unusually clipped. "I'm thrilled to report that we have finally managed to _gently coax_ Mrs. Alzheimer's into a squad car."

"Ymir," Krista sighed softly. For all her patience she sounded a little harried herself. "I wish you wouldn't call her that. She can't help it."

"Yeah, Barbara, stop shitting all over Mrs. Branch's garden party," Jean added. "We're getting ready to pull around now, Detective."

"Call Doctor Jaeger and let him know that we're ready for him," Erwin said, waving for Mike to follow him as he turned and headed back towards the door. "Ackerman, have your team start documenting the outbuilding. Arlert, start lifting prints. I want everyone on my team doing the same up here. The stable needs to be ready for Doctor Jaeger when he arrives."

"What is it?" Mike asked, noting a particular haste in Erwin's stride as he made his way down the long aisle, barely glancing sideways into the stalls he passed. He was clearly still on a mission--some urgent necessity left undone.

"We haven't found an arena," the detective answered simply.

"Erwin, I've put a little thought into that." The doctor's voice still lacked their customary enthusiasm, but they seemed to be paying more attention to what they were saying. "The arena would have to be located far enough underground that flames from the fighting wouldn't be visible, but they can't seal it entirely either. There must be a large vent or two somewhere that break the surface. A fire consumes oxygen rapidly, so they would have to pump air down into the chamber from up here if they don't like the idea of suffocating."

"I would hide a vent like that in the trees," Mike said, though as soon as they turned the corner his eyes were moving, seeking Nanaba in the dark.

"That's what I was thinking, too. It could be anywhere on the property, though these buildings look old enough to predate the arena so my guess is they put the whole damn thing in the woods, entrance and all."

Erwin had a tendency to agree with Hanji, but it was too soon to call in for dogs or ground penetrating radar. Ideally, there would be some clue along the fringes of the woods, some sign that people had been there. “The ground will be worn with foot traffic," he said. "There will be a trail."

"Yes, there should be."

Mike drug the respirator from his face as he strode across the patchy lawn towards Nanaba, who was looking a little worse for wear by Erwin's front bumper where she leaned heavily against the hood, her small hand balled into a fist on the top of the tire. The vomiting seemed to have passed, though Hanji still hovered close, speaking in an undertone without touching the ailing dragon. When they saw Mike and Erwin approaching, they stepped away quickly, skirting back around the SUV to retrieve their own respirator from the seat where they'd left it.

Erwin continued past them as Mike pulled the shaky dragon into his arms, moving to address the small team that had just arrived. "Kirchstein, run your group around the perimeter of the trees and look for that trail. The trees in that spot will also look younger if they clear cut all the way up to the edge. Radio immediately once you find it and I'll send more officers down to help you."

The boy nodded agreeably, though it was Marco’s eager, "Yes, Sir!" that Erwin heard as the team moved out.

"Arlert, how does it look down there?" Erwin asked. “Are there any bodies?” Nanaba's eyes turned to him and the stubbornness in them was clear, though the size of her pupils belied her bravery.

"The front of the building is in fair condition," the boy answered promptly. "It's females only up here, no young. They seem to be moving mothers to the back when they're close to term. We have a few dead hatchlings and several broken eggs that look like they were inadvertently crushed and those have not been cleared from the mother's stalls. One of the adults in the back is also dead and looks to have been there for some time. The body is falling apart."

"Egg-bound, probably," Hanji murmured. They were standing on the running board looking over the top of the SUV at everyone, their chin resting at the apex of their laced fingers. “They’re raising the young right next to other dead dragons, right there in a constant cloud of alarm pheromones. That would fuck a dragon up.”

“It would make them capable of withstanding it in the ring.” Erwin looked doubtfully over at Nanaba, who was not wearing a headset but was probably close enough to Mike's to hear what was being described. "Would you be able to go in there?"

"The hatchlings are my first priority," Nanaba assured them. "They'll be confused and wary. They haven't seen much of the world and all they've seen of humans are the shitty ones. You'll need a dragon telling them it's okay."

"If you think you can do it I'm not going to object," Erwin promised, aiming to ease the defensive cast to Nanaba's expression. "But if you have to go, go. Mike is great with kids." Mike snorted, but Erwin waited for the dragon to nod her reluctant agreement before he spoke again to Armin. "Nanaba and Mike will be down in a moment. Defer to any of their orders." He motioned to Hanji to follow and turned back towards the stable, raising both his eyebrows at Mike as he passed. "I hope it goes well."

"You and me both."

Erwin hadn't had much opportunity to look closely at the stalls or their occupants on his first walkthrough, intent as he'd been on securing the building as quickly and safely as possible. He hadn't been thinking much then about the dragons themselves, only about ensuring that each one was in fact a dragon and not a stray human ducked into a stall and hoping to be overlooked. Erwin had been looking for elliptical pupils--the only feature that was certain to identify a dragon in their human form. It was the only thing Erwin had been focused on. Now, as he set his respirator grimly back in place, there was nothing to distract him from the rest of it--the horror in the details.

"What are these?" he asked, though in essence he already knew. The unusual assembly of metal plates and lengths of chain could only be some form of restraint, but Erwin thought they looked more like a first grader’s interpretation of what armor might look like if it had been invented by chimpanzees. "Is this holding the dragons in their human forms?" Erwin couldn't see any other reason for them to stay. The stalls were fully enclosed, but the brittle, decades old wood was nothing to a dragon but kindling.

"It's a titanium harness," Hanji said, looking through the bars at the first dragon they came to, his slender frame sagging beneath the strange-looking contraption like a portrait of a broken knight. "It physically prevents the initial stages of a dragon's transformation by restricting movement while their form is still at its weakest. I've never seen this method of restraint in person before. It's too expensive, thank God, for the average piece of shit to afford."

"Does it hurt them?" Erwin asked. The brunet didn't appear to be in any immediate pain, though their scrutiny was obviously making him nervous.

"Only if they attempt the transformation. It isn't meant to be reversed partway along. The shock to their system can kill them. Obviously, the titanium harness is banned, which is why you haven't seen anyone decent using it." They swiped the clipboard from its hook by his door and took a look at it. "They've been keeping records at least," they said, waving the clipboard at Erwin to indicate what they meant. "That should save you some time. There's a lot here, though the organization is a mess. I can use these to pick out your strongest candidates for questioning. Do you know how many you'll have space for?"

"Not if we can save the breeding females," Erwin admitted. "If we can take them I want them all, so that won't leave much room for the ones we keep for questioning. Armin will be getting a final count for us."

Hanji nodded slowly. "Until then, I'll go through and eliminate the sick and the injured. If their clipboard is on the floor, they're healthy. Once you decide how many you need, we'll go back and choose the oldest. The older ones will have had more opportunities to see something useful. How does that sound?"

"Solid," Erwin agreed.

The doctor looked back into the stall, seeking to make eye contact that the dragon was clearly trying to avoid. He was pressed firmly into the back corner of the stall, his long limbs folded close to his body where he tried to keep himself seated on the one small lump of hay that rose above the stinking mire at the bottom of his stall. "Derik," Hanji called softly, using the name at the top of his records. "We're here to help you." But the dragon was disengaged, tense under their eyes. Hanji deliberated over the clipboard for a moment before kneeling to set it quietly on the floor in front of his door, something like relief in their face.

The next stall was much the same as the first--filth and submission. The next, filth and submission, filth and submission. Filth and submission. All of the dragons were banged up, covered in scar tissue, bearing injuries in various stages of healing. Hanji left the clipboards for each injured dragon on the pegs they found them on, each one adding to the shadows beneath the doctor’s eyes. Some of the dragons were worse off than others. Few of the injuries had been tended to, or maintained once they _had_ been tended to. There was more than one soiled bandage, more than one festering wound. A female lay curled in the sludge at the bottom of her stall, motionless except for the faint rise and fall of her bare side, which was shot through with severe septicemia. Hanji looked at her for a long time before they told Erwin, "Doctor Jaeger will need to prioritize this one. She’s in a lot of pain."

The dragon did not react at all to the sound of Hanji's voice, though it was almost directly over her head. Erwin might have presumed her dead if he hadn't paused to look very closely for movement around her narrow ribcage. "Turn the documents around," he suggested. "We need a different designation for the ones that need urgent attention."

Hanji shook their head, but it was slow--not a denial. They snatched the glasses from their face and began working at the lenses with the tail of their shirt, turning to lean back against the stall door. Erwin could understand the doctor's anger. It was the same anger he would feel much later when he was alone and there was nothing left for him to do. It was the same profound disappointment.

"Do you need a break?" the detective asked.

"No," Hanji snapped, though they paused as the question really sank in, their eyes drifting up the long aisle ahead of them. "Only for a second. I want to do this all at once." The doctor pushed their glasses back onto their nose, carefully lifting each respirator strap to hook the arms over their ears. "It's such a waste, Erwin. Legally speaking, every dragon in here will be considered a danger to the public. They won't risk rehabilitation for any of them--not with records like these. Look at this garbage." Hanji grabbed the septicemic dragon's clipboard roughly from its nail and yanked up on the first sheet. "Geneveve. Fought May 10th, fought June 6th, fought July 8th." Another page roughly flipped. "A fucking injury log. _Antibiotic ointment_. That's what they put on _that_." The doctor pointed with the corner of the clipboard to the ruined dragon, her ugly wound almost certainly fatal whether it was attended to or not. As far as it had spread, it had to be in the blood. "Have you seen anything this sick, Erwin?"

The detective sighed. He could feel Reiner and Bertholdt moving up the aisle behind him, their camera shutter sliding softly in its housing as they committed each act of inhumanity to film. They'd gone silent as they worked, the easy, triumphant smiles falling from their faces. They hadn't laughed in a long time, murmuring when they spoke like the mood of the place had settled over them. The boys were deferential in the way they maneuvered their camera, quiet and careful like they were documenting a funeral.

"I've been involved in a couple of dog fighting busts," Erwin said finally. "It was similar to this. Not quite so bad."

Hanji nodded solemnly. They looked as though they wanted to say something else, but a sharp cry from directly behind Erwin had Hanji's eyes jumping sideways and widening. The detective turned just in time to catch sight of a bony hand withdrawing into the stall opposite Geneveve's, of Reiner leaping back more nimbly than a person his size should have been capable of doing, shouting, _"Jesus fuck!"_ as he clutched the digital camera protectively to his broad chest.

"Did he get you?" Bertholdt leaned over to get a better look at Reiner's wrist and forearm, both of which appeared to be unscathed. The dragons shifted anxiously in their stalls, startled by the commotion.

"Almost." The boy took another step back, bewildered. "Shit, I guess that one didn't want his picture taken."

"Be careful, Reiner," the other boy chided. "You're letting your guard down.”

“I sure as hell _was_. Jesus, everyone in here looks at us all zombie eyed like they barely see us, of course I’m going to relax.” He looked over his shoulder at Erwin in expectation of some kind of answer, but the detective only stepped around Hanji to cross the aisle.

This drake was not timid like the others. Erwin could see that right away. This one did not avert his eyes from Reiner until Erwin moved, and then his focus slid from one to the other as quickly as a cruise missile retargeting, his eye contact direct and hostile. That was a _stay the fuck away from me_ look if Erwin had ever seen one. Instead of backing away, he moved closer to the stall door as Erwin approached, ready to draw blood if the detective got close enough to his tiny kingdom. Erwin stopped. He wasn't going to get that dragon's clipboard without a painful souvenir of the attempt. That much was clear to all of them. Erwin turned the situation over in his head, weighing the few available options.

But Hanji took the decision out of his hands, having drifted up to Erwin's elbow while he and the little drake stared each other down. Their hand appeared like a fork of lightning and snagged the clipboard from its nail, whipping it off and twisting out of the dragon's reach before he could lash out with his sharp nails.

"Well done," Erwin thought to say, though he was about as surprised by the development as the drake himself looked.

"His name is Levi," Hanji reported briskly, their eyes skimming the thick stack of documents in front of them with growing interest. "Well damn. These numbers are significantly larger than the others."

"How significant?" Erwin moved to look over Hanji's shoulder at the record. Even Reiner craned his neck to catch a subtle glance, though the elbow Bertholdt applied to his rib cage for the attempt was less so.

"Well, he's older for one. Much older. His injury log is longer, his fight log goes back years rather than months. He's got a little nick across the back of his shoulder, but he's the oldest one here by far. It would be a mistake not to take him. I'm not sure what this notation here means, but I _think_ he might be their reigning champion." Hanji glanced up at the dragon then, prompting Erwin to do the same.

Levi hadn't taken his eyes off of either of them. He seemed particularly keen on letting Erwin know with the sheer force of his stare that he would like nothing more than to sink those dark nails into the detective's jugular. Once Erwin broke eye contact, though, and took in the rest of him, he did note that the small body in front of him bore a much longer record of pain than most of the others, criss-crossed by marks that varied in age from pale white to scabbed to angry and red. Considering the kind of medical care they were receiving here, it was a wonder Levi had survived all of those. His immune system had to’ve been as strong as the rest of him.

"Ha. They've written a note here about his temperament." A friendly glimmer had returned to Hanji's eyes as they looked up again at Levi. "I hope you put somebody in the hospital."

Levi didn't seem to know what to do with that. Erwin had been watching for indications that the dragons here spoke English, but while he was fairly certain that this one had at least a basic foundation, Levi could just as easily have been responding to body language or vocal pitch. "Hanji means that strictly in the past tense," he tried, watching intently for any sign of comprehension. "They don't mean for you to put anyone in the hospital this morning."

When Levi lowered his chin like he intended to do just that, Erwin smiled. It would be much easier for him to get information from a dragon that understood him, even if that dragon had no intention of cooperating. "My name is Erwin and this is Hanji. You’ve grown up with some terrible people, but I want to let you know that they are not the norm. What they’ve done to you here is illegal and they have been hiding it. I’m a police detective. It’s my job to find people like this so they can be held accountable for their actions.” Levi was listening, his eyes narrow with suspicion, but Erwin was certain that he understood. “I’d like to offer you an opportunity to help us find your captors.”

The drake’s thin lips curled into a sneer--the kind of expression that normally preceded some form of agreement, some desire for retribution. But Levi turned away from them, lifting himself effortlessly into the empty hayrack and tucking his filthy toes beneath him. Erwin wasn't entirely certain that the dragon’s contempt wasn't directed at him.

"Set his clipboard down," Erwin told Hanji. "We're taking him in."

Levi was something they hadn’t seen before. He occupied that rusty old hayrack as haughtily as a prince on his throne, glowering down at his would-be rescuers like they had tracked filth into his throne room. His gray eyes dared them to try their best, to come in after him if they thought they could. Levi burned. He was impressive--something the owner of this enterprise could hardly resist looking at in person. He'd seen the ringleader's face. Erwin was certain of it.

If there was information to be had, Levi was the one who had it.


	2. Secure Transport

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erwin is ready to transport Levi to the precinct, but it becomes dangerously apparent that he and Levi do not share the same agenda.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys for the comments and the interest in chapter one! This is the last stable chapter for a while, I swear. 
> 
> My heartfelt thanks to [Mandy](http://harmony283.tumblr.com/) for the beta-read.

There wasn’t a single dragon in that stable that could match Levi’s spirit. Erwin and Hanji were working their way through a complete circuit, seeking every pair of hollow eyes and finding all of them looking anywhere else but at the humans. Someone had invested a lot of time into breaking those dragons. They were homogenous in their suffering, turning their heads away and hunching their bony shoulders like they wished to be overlooked. They sank into themselves. Erwin couldn’t escape the idea that he and Hanji were browsing through a twisted side-show. The battered, shrunken bodies suggested nothing, left nothing open for interpretation. What Erwin saw when he looked at them was a shameless and unapologetic homage to the very worst of humanity.

“I’ll continue on,” Hanji offered, reaching out to take Erwin by the elbow when Krista radioed in to announce Doctor Jaeger’s arrival. “The vet will need instructions.”

“Will you be able to stay in here?” It wasn’t Hanji’s emotions he asked after, but their physical health. “Your eyes are looking pretty bad.”

“So are yours.” Hanji blinked at him unhappily, their eyes bloodshot and irritated. “No, don’t wipe them! Your hands are a biohazard.”

Erwin’s hand froze part-way to his face, where his own eyes were tearing up so badly that it was becoming difficult for him to see. Behind the respirator his nose was trying to run, wanting to flush his system of chemicals that were too abundant in the air for his body to deal with. Any follow-up crews Erwin sent in here would need eye protection in addition to their respirators. Reluctantly, he let his arms fall to his sides. “Don’t stay for much longer,” Erwin warned the doctor. “Eye damage is an expensive fix, too.”

Hanji’s quiet snort followed him out … or it could been a legitimate sniffle.

"Mike, how is Nanaba holding up?" Erwin assumed that they were down at the outbuilding and sure enough, when he turned the corner and sought the dark silhouette of his SUV he came up one vehicle short.

"She's better now that she has a mission," Mike answered after a moment. "That or she's acclimating like she said. We took your car."

"Yes, I see that." Doctor Jaeger's headlights were moving in his direction, advancing slowly as the veterinarian picked his way across the uneven terrain. He'd brought his mobile clinic--a seventeen foot moving truck he'd modified for making house calls. It wasn’t exactly an all-terrain vehicle, but Grisha seemed to be managing. "Is Grisha's respirator with you? It was in my trunk."

"I left it in Sasha's front seat."

Erwin nodded, though there was no one around to see him. As the headlights swung left and landed on him he stepped away from the squad car and raised an arm to wave the veterinarian over. "How do the younglings look?"

"I think they're going to pass muster," Mike said. "They show no aggression towards Nanaba in either of her forms so they haven't been trained yet for the ring. They're a little wary of me, but that's a socialization issue we can fix pretty easily. Important thing is, there's no aggression."

"Change over to the other frequency." Mike would know the one he meant. They'd settled on it before they finished planning the operation. Erwin adjusted his own radio and waited for Mike to confirm his presence there before he continued. "I want you to assess the females as well," Erwin told him quickly, wanting to finish before there was any risk of Grisha overhearing. "Assess them rigorously. If they check out I want you to transfer as many to the preserve as you can get away with starting with gravid mothers. The outbuilding team will work with you."

"You've been thinking about this for a while," Mike accused, though there was no heat in it.

"Maybe," the detective replied, casually turning his shoulder as the veterinarian rolled into lip-reading distance. "You and I both know that the courts won't take any risks here. Not once they see the photographs. They'll have all the adults put down regardless of their involvement in the fighting. I won't make a murderer of Doctor Jaeger and I won't stand as an accessory to it."

"I agree."

"Do it, then." Erwin nodded to the doctor as he stepped down from the driver seat, dabbing his palms on his pant legs as he approached. "Grisha is here," was all he could say after that.

"I've been doing this for a minute or two," Mike replied, and Erwin could hear the languid humor that would be showing around his eyebrows as he said it. "If they come with us, their temperaments will be stable."

"I trust you. Good morning, Doctor Jaeger," Erwin finished smoothly, flipping back to the communal channel and offering the veterinarian his hand. "Thank you for doing this. I’m afraid you're in for a longer day than we anticipated." But the vet waved him off like it was nothing, his gaze steady as he took Erwin’s hand and shook.

"It isn't a problem. Do you have any numbers yet or are you still assessing?"

"I have a consultant in the stable finishing our preliminary count. The majority of your patients are being held there, but there are younglings in the outbuilding that are my first priority. Mike, are there any urgent cases down there for Doctor Jaeger?"

A beat of silence. Then a small hum of feedback and, "None that can be saved."

“If anything changes, radio up.” Erwin shook his head at the vet, who nodded grimly and turned back to his mobile clinic to retrieve something from the passenger side.

“What are your holding facilities like?” Grisha asked as he went, stepping up onto the running board and reaching into the cab. “Do you have enough space to accommodate all of the dragons here?”

“Not hardly,” the detective admitted, his eyes following the dark satchel that Grisha pulled from his truck. “We weren’t anticipating so many and even if we had, I doubt we’d have been able to scrounge up the space and resources. Several precincts across the county have holding cells equipped for dragons, but there are only a few at each location."

"And how many do you intend to keep for questioning?"

Erwin sighed. There was the hard question. "I arrived expecting to take anyone healthy enough, but we won't be able to handle this many. I'll have to wait on our final numbers, but with this many females on site our maximum is probably going to be five fighters. We could stretch to twenty or thirty if we use the titanium restraints that Hanji pointed out to me, but I have ethical concerns." Ethical concerns. It was almost laughable considering Erwin’s agenda for the rest of the evening. He had _ethical concerns_ about destroying a stable full of sentient beings as well--something there was no way around, legally speaking. If any one of those fighters slipped through their fingers and encountered mainstream society where dragons were not bred to kill one another, there would be attacks. There would be deaths. Erwin stood there with his hand resting on the roof of the Sasha’s squad car, his eyebrows drawn together.

“I realize that you have to get these things approved,” Grisha began slowly. He lowered his satchel carefully to the ground, but kept hold of the shoulder strap. “But I have certified containment units in my practice that you’re welcome to use. There are other veterinarians I can call--colleagues I’m sure would feel the same as I do. We don’t have many of the secure units--one or two at the most for each clinic, but I’d be happy to ask around.”

The detective straightened, his hand sliding from the roof. “Of course,” he mused. “You’re right, it would have to be approved, but I can get the process started after I show you around. I appreciate this, Grisha.”

“I’ll do what I can to help. And I have no doubt that my colleagues will want to do the same.” The corner of his mouth twitched upwards in a tired smile that Erwin couldn’t help but reciprocate as he pulled open the passenger door and ducked his head in. The respirator was actually in the driver’s seat, so he leaned across the console for it.

"I have one fighter I want to go ahead and prep for transport," he told the vet, raising his voice to be heard over the muffling effect of having his body half in and half out of a squad car. "After that, we can move through the others systematically, but I want this one secured first."

Grisha was nodding when Erwin looked back around at him. "That would be doable," the veterinarian assured. "I've chosen a sedative that, at the proper dosage, should last long enough to get your fighters back to the precinct and into a holding facility. I will have to estimate their weights since manhandling them onto a scale at this point would do more harm than good, but I can give you a small booster dose to administer in the event they begin to come out of it in transit. You will want to remove them from the stable before we begin euthanizing. The pheromones that dragons release when they die will let the others know exactly what I’m doing here and they'll be harder to sedate as they fight us.”

“Yes, I’ve seen a little of that tonight. One of my consultants was similarly affected.”

“You have a dragon consulting here?” Grisha asked, his eyebrows leaping high above his spectacles. He was slow to take the respirator from Erwin and held it there loosely in front of him once he had it, clearly more interested in Nanaba than the equipment.

“My partner, Mike, and his reciprocal help Mike’s father run the dragon preserve two hours North of here. They’ve been authorized to collect any younglings that have not been trained for the ring.”

“And this … reciprocal. Is he or she resisting the flight response?”

Erwin turned a thoughtful eye on the vet, curious at the note of hesitation he detected in the other man’s tone. _Reciprocal_ was the word of the day in media networks all across the country, used to refer to either party involved in a romantic dragon-human relationship. Erwin wouldn’t have expected a dragon specialist to disapprove, if that was what Grisha had just unintentionally expressed. Perhaps it was the word itself he disliked. Many people did. But Erwin watched the man closely as he replied. “She is. Nanaba is doing very well.”

“Remarkable,” the vet murmured. “That’s remarkable. I’ve heard that the flight response is nearly unbearable.”

“Nanaba is very stubborn,” Erwin told him honestly. “She said she would become desensitized. Isn’t that what the other dragons here have done?”

“Yes, but that takes time and plenty of it.” Grisha lifted his satchel and followed Erwin when he started for the stable, turning the respirator over in his hands as he worked out which way it should fit. “These dragons grew up surrounded by death. They were hatched into it. You can’t compare them to any dragon you’ve encountered before now.” But as they came upon the door, the vet reached out and took Erwin by the elbow, stopping him politely before he could enter.

“Before we proceed, Detective, I will need to know how you would prefer to have the dragons euthanized. Depending upon your choice, I will have to send Eren back to the clinic to retrieve more supplies. I wasn’t anticipating these kinds of numbers.”

“How?” Erwin repeated quizzically. “I wasn’t aware that more than one method was available.” He wasn’t terribly familiar with the process of euthanasia, period. He’d grown up with hamsters and fish. While he supposed that one could euthanize a hamster, his family had never done so. And the fish had always inevitably euthanized themselves. He’d been under the impression that the process was something chemical, something added to the system like a lethal injection.

"There are two methods I endorse in my own practice," Grisha told Erwin patiently. He’d probably explained this a thousand times to a thousand different personality types. For Erwin, Grisha was efficient and businesslike, delivering the facts without the fluff. Erwin appreciated it. "One is a combination of a sedative with a barbiturate called sodium pentobarbital. This is the least horrifying method for onlookers, but it is also expensive and for this many dragons you are looking at a hefty bill. I also have a bolt gun, which is more dramatic, but also more cost effective. I brought both with me, but once again I may have to send Eren back for additional doses of the sedative and the barbiturate if you intend to go that route."

"Which is the most humane?" Erwin asked. He did not blink, did not flinch. He gave nothing away and Grisha eyed him with interest as he replied.

"Both are about the same in terms of physicality. The biggest concern with the bolt gun is more psychological. A dragon is not like a cow. They are intelligent enough to sense that something is wrong even if they have never seen a gun before. Unless you do it very quickly or you sedate them first, they die frightened. What I can do is sedate all of them and then go back through with the bolt gun after everyone is unconscious. They also wouldn’t detect the pheromones in the air if we use that method. You would still have to cover the sedative, but you’d eliminate the cost of the barbiturate."

Erwin was already nodding before Grisha finished. "That’s how we’ll do it, then. If you can keep costs down that's wonderful, but as far as I'm concerned the precinct can mind its budget elsewhere. Do this as humanely as you can." If the method of their dying was only thing that Erwin could control--the only thing he could do for them--he would ensure that the dragons died more peacefully than they had lived.

The detective held a finger to his lips to halt the conversation as he cracked the door open and gestured for Grisha to precede him. To the other man's credit, he did not immediately balk, either at the smell--strong enough to filter through the respirator--or the sight of the first stall, though he did reach up slowly to grasp the door as he took everything in. The dragon inside--the tall brunette that Erwin and Hanji had seen first--hunched in on himself anxiously, avoiding their attention.

"What a waste," the doctor said, a hint of bitterness creeping through his air of detached calm. It passed quickly, though, and he moved on, waving vaguely at the stalls surrounding them. "Which do you want immediately transported?"

“He’s on this side.”

Erwin slipped by the vet to take him down the aisle, feeling a little like a tour guide at an attraction in Hell. “His records say that he has a superficial injury on his shoulder, but he looks like a favorite.” As they neared the stall in question Erwin had to slow down and start looking into each, forgetting precisely where Levi had been. There were several clipboards on the floor near the champion’s stall--already more in this one little cluster than Erwin could afford to take. As he looked in at each of the fighters he imagined trying to choose between them. When they were clearly injured or unwell that was the decision made for them. No one had to discuss who to point their finger at and say to Doctor Jaeger, “Save that one, euthanize this one.” Erwin studied each filthy face and felt like a murderer.

“Here.”

“This is him?” Grisha leaned close to the bars to assess the little dragon that Erwin indicated, his gaze falling to the soupy mess on the floor beneath Levi’s hay rack. When the vet looked back up and found his patient glowering right back at him, Grisha shook his head. "This one is going to be aggressive. If you come across any who make direct eye contact like this, don't walk into their stalls until they've been dosed."

Erwin huffed a short, humorless laugh. “We know he’s aggressive. He already tried to take a piece of one of my officers.” Inside the stall, Levi shifted, looking down his nose at the two of them like they were the ones who smelled bad.

"He's the only one demonstrating openly hostile behavior," Hanji announced briskly, striding up with a businesslike air and their index finger curled around a silver, two-pronged key. "I’ve flagged a few unstable temperaments, but the majority are very timid. At least where humans are concerned."

"That's a wise distinction to make," Doctor Jaeger noted, subtly appraising the other doctor as they approached and developing his first impression. "Put any of these dragons in a ring and they will try to tear each other apart."

"Doctor Jaeger, this is Doctor Hanji. I don't think you've met."

"Psychology and Dragon Behavior," Hanji answered before the vet could ask. The two of them did not shake hands, as Hanji had already stepped over to the septicemic female's stall, obviously intent upon testing a theory. "I believe this key will unlock the dragons' restraints. It appears to line up with the keyholes." The brunette did not pause to ask for permission, simply went ahead and slid the latch back on the stall door. Erwin noted the way Grisha’s mouth opened like he intended to protest or warn Hanji off, but he stopped himself, his eyes moving instead to Erwin.

“The dragon in that stall is dying. I’m not sure she knows we’re here.”

Grisha nodded, but the way his eyes lingered on the open door and the small sliver of Hanji that was visible beyond it said he wasn’t convinced. However, Erwin trusted Hanji’s judgment on the matter more than he trusted his own or even Grisha’s. The doctor had been working with dragons of all types and temperaments for years and they had a sort of innate understanding of how a mind operated--any mind, human _or_ dragon.

Erwin did not think his own project would be so simple. Levi looked ready to give them hell, bristling defensively from his high ground position in the hay rack like a gargoyle hanging off the side of a gothic cathedral. Grisha sat his bag down with a low sigh, kneeling to retrieve the items he needed--a clean syringe and a glass vial full of clear liquid. "Come here," the doctor said firmly, speaking to Levi.

The dragon simply looked at him, his blue-gray eyes clearly conveying how unimpressive he found the both of them to be.

"Come," Grisha tried again. "Now." When that failed to elicit a response any more satisfactory than the first, the veterinarian added, "I can hit you from here with a dart if you make that necessary, but I’d prefer not to. When it knocks you out, you’ll fall into that mess you're trying to avoid."

Levi's gaze flicked down for the barest second to the soiled bedding beneath him--the first sign of uncertainty he’d shown since Erwin had encountered him.

“You look like you’ve been trying to keep yourself clean,” the detective continued astutely, picking up where Doctor Jaeger left off. “You’ve done a pretty good job, considering. If you fall out of that hay rack, though, I don’t know how long it will be before you can clean yourself up.”

Levi’s titanium harness clinked as he shifted uncomfortably on his perch, disgust bunching around his pointed nose. Still, he wasn’t about to give an inch and Erwin could see that. He’d been interrogating people for years and he knew when pushing would get him nowhere. Occasionally, rarely, there were people who passed through his interrogation room who could not be bargained with, coaxed, logically persuaded or intimidated. They could not be moved by anything the officers threw at them. It didn’t matter what was offered or what was taken away. These types would not bend. They all had a certain look--a demeanor that Levi had in spades--and one scrawny-looking vet telling him sternly to cooperate wasn’t going to make it so.

Erwin shrugged out of his jacket.

“What are you doing, Detective?”

“He isn’t coming to us.” Erwin hooked his jacket over the vacant nail they’d found Levi’s clipboard hanging from, using his boot to sweep the documents from of the doorway. His eyes never left the dragon, who waited attentively on his perch like a hawk waiting for a rabbit to fuck up. “Give me the sedative. I’ll go in and administer it.”

“I wouldn’t advise …” But Grisha took Erwin’s gun holster when the other man passed it to him, hanging it reluctantly across his own shoulder without fastening the buckle. The veterinarian sighed. He knew that it was Erwin or the dart and more could go wrong with the dart. "Because of his size, I’m estimating this dosage on the low end," he warned Erwin as he turned the vial slowly and pushed the needle into its rubber stopper. "You'll want to restrain him in case it's too little and I need to add to it. I'm assuming, of course, that you intend to remove the titanium."

"He does," Hanji answered for Erwin, their tone final. "The key works.” They jerked their thumb over to the stall directly across from Levi’s with its door hanging slightly ajar. “I only unlocked one of the ankle cuffs, but she isn’t exactly making a wild bid for freedom. Did I hear you say you were about to go in after Levi?”

“He’s bound in titanium,” Erwin replied, watching the veterinarian replace the bright orange needle cover before he relinquished the syringe into Erwin’s waiting hands. “That puts us on even ground.”

“Of all the dragons,” Hanji sighed. “The only one that no one would recommend going in there after. Don’t assume you’ll be evenly matched because he’s in his human form. He’s a fighting champion no matter what shape he’s in, and they’ll have fought him in both.”

“Duly noted.”

“You don’t have a tranquilizer gun with you, Doctor Jaeger?”

“He does, but falling onto his head from that height could kill him, couldn’t it?” Erwin asked.

Hanji hummed, visually measuring the distance between the hay rack and the floor of the stall. “Possibly. It’s unlikely, but it could happen.”

“Try to get that into a muscle,” Grisha instructed, handing the syringe over. “Something substantial like a thigh or a shoulder.”

“He’s probably all muscle, to be honest,” Hanji added helpfully. “Unless he catches your carotid first, you can’t go wrong.”

Erwin didn’t reply to either of them, already focused on the task of opening the stall door. Once he got it open he would have to move quickly if he didn’t want to risk Levi getting past him. The door wasn’t locked and it didn’t have to be. The sliding bolt sat low along the frame--well beyond the reach of even the most ambitious hands.

“Be ready to open this up for us. I’m not going to hold him down in his own shit.”

Hanji looked like they wanted to raise another protest, but there was little to say. The sludge at the bottom of Levi's stall did look deep enough to drown a person in if their head was pressed flush against the ground. The doctor’s mouth twisted unhappily. “I wasn’t going far, anyway. Someone will need to call the paramedics for you.”

From atop the hay rack, Levi’s toes curled, his whole body tensing under Erwin’s calculating scrutiny. The drake hadn’t looked at either of Erwin’s companions in several minutes, knowing exactly where the greatest threat would come from. He was hyper-aware of the detective, his eyes jumping to each tiny movement the man made. Then Erwin threw open the stall door and all their mutual assessing ground to a violent halt.

Erwin made it approximately one and a half steps into the stall before Levi was on him, launching himself from the hay rack with enough force and momentum to throw them both sideways into the wall. The drake was heavier than Erwin had anticipated, even considering the titanium harness he wore. That double impact of wall and dragon forced all the air from Erwin’s lungs in a wheezing exhale, then slim fingers had him by the throat, their grip on Erwin strong enough to prevent him from recovering the oxygen he’d lost.

Levi’s other hand came up, fingers curled into raking claws. Even in human form, each of those nails was sharp enough to lay his face open in one motion--and Levi certainly tried. He surged upward, going for Erwin’s eyes, but the detective was quick too. He got his own fingers under the edge of that titanium collar at Levi’s throat and swung him around--hard--into the stall door, managing to connect his heavy skull with the solid metal bars.

The door shivered on its sliding track, pushed slightly ajar but not wide enough to force the dragon through. Someone--Hanji, probably--must have realized this and grabbed the handle from the other side because the pair came tumbling out just as Levi began to recover from the shock. The dragon lashed out blindly and managed to catch Erwin just above the elbow with his nails as they overbalanced and spilled into the floor, but the detective barely felt it.

“Step away!” He called to Grisha and Hanji, noting in his periphery that some of his officers were also running up the center aisle to help contain the thrashing dragon. Erwin had an immediate advantage by landing on top of Levi or he wouldn’t have been able to get close to him at all. The drake’s movements were too frenzied, too erratic. Levi was beyond strategy or logic, retreating into some instinctive, animal part of himself that only knew it was trapped and angry and afraid. It was like trying to subdue a buzz saw.

Finally, Erwin managed to find that collar again with his fingers and twist away from the teeth that actually tried to close on his wrist, dragging the dragon’s head a couple inches from the brick floor and ramming it back down. The reprieve didn’t last long, but for a split second Levi stilled and that was all the detective needed. Erwin flipped the smaller body deftly beneath his own, using the collar to pull his head around and force the rest of him to follow. Levi arched, trying to throw him off, scrabbling for purchase on the grime-slick brick, but Erwin had him by the side of the head, pinning his cheek to the floor with a knee rammed solidly into the dragon’s back. Levi hissed and snarled and tried to swipe at him with the one arm that wasn’t trapped beneath his chest, but Erwin had him.

“Be careful with the back of his neck,” Hanji called over the sound of blood pounding in Erwin’s ears. “Don’t grab it unless you have no other choice. It will subdue him fast, but he won’t forgive you. You wouldn’t get anything out of him after that.”

The detective looked down at his hands, but it was the side of Levi’s skull beneath his palm, not his nape. “Why should I avoid his neck?”

Hanji hesitated, rubbing the edge of their respirator strap where it was pressing their glasses into the side of their head. “You may prefer not to know that right now.”

“Are you okay, Detective?” Sasha spoke up. “Do you need help? You’re bleeding.”

Erwin was sure he looked like he’d been through a meat grinder, but there was still so much adrenaline in his system that none of it registered. “I dropped the syringe somewhere,” was all he said, though he saw Grisha already preparing another one. “Calm down,” he told the dragon sharply, actually concerned that Levi was going to break his own back the way he was still trying to thrash in spite of being almost completely immobilized. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”

Levi only screamed in outrage, an inhuman sound using more than one set of vocal cords in concurrence. A small chill tickled down Erwin’s spine despite his position of relative safety,  reminded abruptly that this creature could pop his delicate human head head from his shoulders without expending any considerable effort. In his dragon form, Levi could incinerate most of the bones in Erwin’s body, could melt them down into slurry. Erwin was certainly close enough now that there wouldn’t be much left. He was relying completely on an inhumane method of restraint to keep him alive until the sedative kicked in. It was a humbling thought.

Doctor Jaeger stepped quickly around them and kneeled to empty the syringe into Levi’s bunched shoulder, moving with a confidence that hinted at years of experience. “Don’t let go of him yet,” the vet warned, though there was little danger of that. The injection only seemed to make Levi all the more furious, blind with rage so palpable that the other dragons in the stable could feel it. Erwin could hear them shifting restlessly, titanium chains and cuffs and collars clinking in the uneasy quiet.

“Where is Braun?” Erwin asked the officers that had made their way around the scene of the commotion to get between Levi and the open stable doors. Connie shrugged.

“No idea. I can go and look for him if you like.”

“Make it quick, but don’t run down the aisle. I want Hoover too if you can find him.”

Connie nodded, edging back around them to go and look for the larger boys. It was several long minutes before Levi showed any sign of settling--either exhaustion or sedative or both finally doing their work and causing the dragon to go still beneath him, tense but subdued. Erwin could tell he wasn’t unconscious yet--could feel hard, lean muscle rippling beneath him as the dragon’s whole body cringed, uncomfortable with the physical contact.

“Relax, Levi. None of us want to hurt you.” Erwin leaned forward and found the furious gray irises swiveled back, still seeking to look at the man who held him immobile. This close, Erwin could see the subtle flecks of blue in them, disappearing as Levi’s pupils began to dilate. He seemed to be listening to what Erwin was saying, so the detective added, “You’re not going to an arena. There won’t be anymore fighting.”

“You could probably go ahead and start removing the titanium,” Doctor Jaeger suggested softly. “He’s only going to get quieter from here.”

Levi was already getting fairly quiet. He uttered a small, half-hearted growl--something that a human throat could not have accomplished without some dragon heritage to help it along--but otherwise he barely reacted when Hanji joined them on the floor to insert their double-pronged key into each pair of openings. By the time Reiner and Bertholdt arrived the dragon was freed, lying rigid, but unmoving in a puddle of titanium.

“Take him to one of the squad cars and drive him straight to the precinct,” Erwin ordered, slowly trading off with Reiner, who took the dragon’s dead weight and hauled him easily to his feet, ducking beneath him to fold the smaller body over his shoulder. “Be careful with him,” the detective warned. “You’ve seen how quickly he went after you.”

“Here, carry another dose with you,” Grisha added, passing a second syringe to Bertholdt. “If he begins to stir at all, go ahead and administer it immediately. It isn’t a full dose--just enough to quiet him down if he starts getting agitated.”

“He will need to go right into holding,” Erwin said. “Don’t waste time with the intake paperwork until he’s completely secured. The last thing I want to get a call about is an adult dragon rampaging through the reception area.”

Reiner and Bertholdt both nodded grimly. “Where does the needle go?” the dark-headed boy thought to ask.

“Any muscle will do.” Grisha was already closing up his bag, returning the glass vial to a cushioned zippered pouch. “If his eyes stay open, don’t be alarmed. The sedative I’m using causes disassociation. His eyes may follow you, but he won’t feel anything and he won’t know where he is.”

"Geez, creepy,” Sasha murmured.

Erwin watched them go with something like relief settling over him. He was banged up and shredded and his injuries were beginning to sting, but as far as he was concerned, things had gone smoothly. In the end, his primary witness was being transferred safely from his stall, the hard part over. Well. He caught sight of Hanji as they slipped away to tend to their septic female and realized that all of the dragons would challenge them in different ways. Clearing the stable by morning would not be an easy task, emotionally or physically.

“Connie, Sasha. Take over photographing while Reiner and Bertholdt are gone. You recall where they left off?”

“I think,” Connie agreed. “We can start at--”

Something heavy went crashing into the partially open stable door, slamming it back on its rusty hinges with the sharp crack of wood meeting wood.

_“Detective!”_

A second shout--Reiner that time--had Erwin breaking his own rules, turning on his heel to sprint up the aisle with Sasha and Connie’s footfalls sounding right behind him. Bertholdt’s tone had been raw. The alarm he heard there was primal with pain, so when Erwin cleared the barn doors he was prepared to find someone in bad shape, thinking that Levi must have gotten a second wind and carved a piece from one of them. The hand on his radio was poised, ready to call _officer down_ , but Reiner was waving at him the minute they saw each other, unable to speak and grasping his ribs at the base of the barn door.

Levi was gone--a mad flurry of desperate, uncoordinated movement careening down the hill towards the outbuilding. He slid jerkily into his dragon form as he ran, his wings opening in an attempt to steady himself.

“Detective!” Connie called, though the radio hummed in his ear a moment later as he changed over to the coms. “Bertholdt is down. I see a lot of blood!”

“Tend to them both,” Erwin threw over his shoulder, already charging after the half-sedated dragon.

Mike and Nanaba were coming up the hill from the opposite direction and nearly ran headlong into the Levi as he spread his dark wings and dragged his way skyward, flapping like he thought his life depended on it. And it was about to. He veered wildly off course and over-corrected, skimming the ground once before he gained enough lift to try again. From Erwin’s perspective it looked like Levi had barely cleared the tops of his friend’s heads and in retrospect, he supposed it was lucky the drake had other things on his mind because Erwin was certainly not thinking about that unsuppressed flame bladder as he pursued Levi.

“Jesus!” Erwin heard the other detective shout. “Who the hell--”

“Mike!” Erwin tore the respirator from his face so his voice would carry the way he needed it to. “Get him out of the air!”

Mike and Mikasa and several others pulled their sidearms--every one of them prepared to risk the loss of a key witness if it meant protecting an unsuspecting public from a dragon trained to kill anything placed in front of him. It made Erwin’s pulse quicken--the thought of what was going to happen if Levi escaped, of what preventing that escape would mean for their investigation. There would be devastation, death, either way. His officers poured from the outbuilding and the treeline, rushing over the emaciated lawn to see what the problem was. The night came alive with gunfire.

Erwin reached automatically for his own weapon, but he only found empty air where the holster was supposed to be. Cursing, fingers burning for the sidearm in Doctor Jaeger’s possession, Erwin was forced to watch the night fold around Levi until he was gone, leaving his officer’s muzzle blasts twinkling mournfully in the dark like fireflies.


	3. Tepid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seek and ye shall find. Or be found.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey yalls! I'm a little later updating than I would have liked, largely because I've been stricken by the viral garbage that's been going around my workplace and I'm trying to prolong my death for as long as possible so I can finish all my fanfictions. Please cover my casket in an army of tiny Levi and Erwin figurines in lieu of flowers. Thank you.*

Levi had vanished completely into the ether. Two days and an intensive police search yielded nothing more promising than a slew of false alarms and too many hours of overtime clocked by too few police officers. No one was calling the case cold, but it was getting tepid. Statistically speaking, the longer Levi was out there the more likely he was to attack someone. It was incredible that there hadn't been reports already--that Levi hadn't left a trail of blood and charred remains behind him. However, the operators assured Erwin that the emergency calls coming in were the ordinary kind. No rogue dragons.

“Maybe he died somewhere,” Nile had suggested early that morning as he leaned against the break room counter and waited miserably for coffee to brew. “It was dark and he was drugged up to his eyeballs. Did he know to avoid power lines, you think?”

But no one had picked up any unidentified dragons in the past several days, dead or alive. There hadn’t been any unexplained power surges, no unusual sightings or reports of missing dragons. It was like Levi had simply ceased to exist.

There were only so many places a wounded and sedated drake could go. And Erwin had officers on all of them. They had thermal equipment, but if Levi was dead his heat signature would already be dissipating. Their resources and their budget were stretched as far as they could stretch them. The hotline they’d set up was buzzing with bogus information and hysterical questions, attention seekers and indignant citizens. Local media was all over it, splashing the headlines across every paper, website and television screen. _Dragon Escapes Fighting Ring: Police Clueless._

Erwin was, in fact, preparing an updated statement to give to the media when his cell rang, lighting with Mike's contact photo. The detective slowly sat his pen down on the keyboard in front of him, pushing his notes aside.

"Are you missing work already?"

"I am, actually," Mike answered, his voice dull with weariness. "The younglings are giving us hell about seeing our vet. I think if they burn through one more pair of his gloves he’s going to quit. They only behave when Nanaba scruffs them.”

“How did you make it this far without her?” Erwin asked, sitting back in his chair. He was grateful for the small reprieve even as he itched to return to work, rubbing his tired eyes and stretching his legs out in front of him. “Tell her I said hello.”

“I will when I see her next. I’m out on the preserve looking at a dragon corpse.”

Erwin’s eyes snapped open, his feet landing flat on the floor. “Is it Levi?”

“The body isn’t. It’s one of our older females--Lucille. She was here when _I_ was a kid. It looks like Levi’s handiwork, though.”

“How can you tell?”

“I’ve seen deaths on the preserve before--usually over territory or the right to courtship. It didn’t look anything like this. The vet can’t even say which injury was the fatal one. He says it doesn’t look like her attacker stopped as soon as Lucille died. That or they made it slow.”

“Like they were killing for an audience,” Erwin concluded. He was coiled like a spring in his questionably ergonomic swivel chair, ready to move. He’d been sitting still for two days, making calls, organizing searches, communicating with officers and people from the power company and animal control. He’d been placed on and off hold more times than he could count. He would be suffering withdrawal symptoms from prolonged caffeine abuse for at least another week. “Are you sure you don’t have another rogue?”

“It’s possible, but the odds of that are slim. We don’t get many of those and they don’t normally manage to kill our tenants. Lucille wasn’t the only fatality. There are two other bodies in about the same shape.”

Erwin was out of his seat in an instant, yanking his jacket so hard from the back of his chair that he’d have seen it make a full turn if he hadn’t already been halfway across the room. Nile was closest to him, bent over a paper towel with a brownie from the receptionist pinched between his smudgy fingers. He looked up blearily as the blonde swooped in, accustomed to the way the other man moved like he always had somewhere to be and limited time to get there.

"Dawk." Erwin received a slow blink in response, the sugar doing nothing for Nile's obvious sleep deprivation. "Tell Zackley that I went to follow up on a lead for the fighting ring case."

"Aight."

"You'll remember?"

The other man waved him off with a heavy, drooping hand.

"And get yourself some coffee. You deserve it."

Nile muttered something about twelve cups too many and nibbled on the corner of his brownie. Erwin didn't have the heart or the time to tell him that there was also caffeine in chocolate.

"Are you still there?" Erwin said into the phone, punching the button for the elevator and cradling the phone between his cheek and shoulder as he shrugged into his jacket.

"Unfortunately."

"Do you know where Levi is now?" Erwin stepped into the elevator and directed it towards the basement with a quick command.

_"Authorization?"_ The elevator wanted to know.

"We think we have an idea," Mike was saying. "There's a large heat signature in the southern corner of one of the deceased dragons' territories and it shouldn't be there. There's no way the scent of his death has dissipated so any sane dragon will have gotten the hell out of dodge."

"Okay, I'm on my--"

_"Authorization?"_ The elevator reminded him sternly.

"Detective Erwin Smith, badge number 1331. I'm on my way. Don't try to do anything on your own. And keep Nanaba away from Levi. If he’s out there killing dragons she isn’t safe."

_"Authorization verified. Basement Level."_ The elevator dropped smoothly, but the calibration had always been a little off, causing it to fall too quickly and produce that uncomfortable sensation of the stomach rising.

"I have a feeling that none of us are safe,” Mike told him grimly. “Nanaba is back at the rehabilitation center finishing up with the vet. She may come with us in her human form, though. I think she's worried."

"If she has to come, make her bathe in that soap that removes scents."

Mike snorted softly. "I don't think I've ever been able to _make_ Nanaba do anything. But I'll stress the importance."

As the elevator doors opened and Erwin stepped out, Lynette looked up at him from behind the metal security cage between them and grinned, turning her paperback over on the desk in front of her. "Hey there, Detective. Everyone's been down here talking about your big case."

"And checking out all of the tranquilizer guns, I'm sure."

"Tell Lynette I said 'hi.'" There was a playful grin in Mike's voice. Lynette was the baby of the precinct, endeared to every officer who had reason to come down to her domain for supplies.

"Nope," the young woman was saying, scrolling through the inventory database on the computer to her left. "Looks like we still have a few back here. Do you want one?"

"Mike, you have tranquilizer guns and fresh darts at the preserve, don't you?"

"Always."

"You're talking to our Mike?" Lynette chirped cheerfully. "The detective one? Tell him I said 'hi.'"

"Everyone says hello to everyone," Erwin said aloud, addressing both Mike and Lynette, who beamed at being humored by the serious man. "I'll need a squad car." He pulled his badge from his back pocket as he spoke, but once she realized what he was doing, Lynette rolled her eyes, a wave of her hand dismissing the leather badge wallet he tried to pass through to her.

"I know your badge number Erwin Smith. Have you had one of Dianne's birthday brownies yet? They're incredible." She typed something into the computer--presumably his ID number--and struck the enter key with an exaggerated flourish. “I asked for the recipe, but she said she would have to kill me if she told me.”

"I'll get one on my way out," Erwin lied. He hadn't found a topic yet that Dianne could not speak about at length and he didn't have time just then to try finding the one she couldn't.

Lynette pushed her chair back, raising her bright, sock-clad feet and allowing the rollers to take her deeper into the cage where the keys were all lined up neatly on their pegboard. There were quite a few missing. "How's number 121 sound?" She asked.

"Symmetrical," Erwin answered vaguely, scooping up the set of keys she slid through to him. "Thank you, Lyn."

The girl beamed at the rarely used nickname. 

 

*    *    *

 

 Erwin put car 121 through its paces. As soon as he was out of the precinct parking lot he flipped his lights and siren and gunned it. And continued gunning it. Even with other cars moving themselves urgently from his path it was a good hour and a half to the preserve--a sprawling woodland located well north of the city. Mike was gradually inheriting the unusual real estate and its tenants from his father, who had been a pioneer of dragon self-advocacy for as long as anyone could remember. Zacharius Senior still did what he could, refusing to retire, he said, until the preserve retired him. Mike had also inherited his father’s ideals, though to a much lesser extreme. He maintained the preserve with the same quiet, unwavering devotion that he applied towards everything important to him.

He and Nanaba were waiting when Erwin pulled up at the security gate, which was sporting a brand new sign that ominously warned, _INFRARED MONITORS IN USE - NO TRESPASSING._

"Have you gotten full coverage of the preserve?" Erwin asked through the open window as he rolled to a stop on the other side of the motorized gate.

"Only along the perimeter," Nanaba answered. "But we have it rigged to an alarm. If anything on two legs tries to enter, we'll know about it."

"You may discover Bigfoot this way," Erwin pointed out, though Nanaba simply snorted.

"Bigfoot would be smart enough to stay out of a preserve full of semi-wild dragons. Tourists, on the other hand ..."

"We haven't had any trespassing since we posted the signs, though," Mike added. "So we're hopeful."

"Problem is the land you're buying on the East end." Nanaba waved for the guard to close the gate. "We don't have any sensors rigged along the new property line, so we can't move anyone over there until everything is set up. We absolutely cannot afford a human death on the preserve, even if it was their own damn fault. If you ask me the person who walks into an adult dragon's territory thinking 'hey this will be an awesome idea' should be culled from the gene pool anyway, but lawmakers have no respect for Darwinism."

"Yeah and it's a goddamn travesty, now let the man park." Mike waved a hand towards Erwin's usual spot by the guard station. It was a straight track up the road to the small cluster of buildings that made up the administration areas and rehabilitation center, but Mike and Nanaba didn’t plan on going there or they'd have left Erwin to pull all the way in. Instead, they waited for him to park beside their heavy duty 4x4 and ushered him into the passenger seat.

"Our last readings show that Levi--or the dragon we think is him--hasn't moved out of the area since we called you this morning." Nanaba swung lightly into the seat behind Erwin where there was more leg room and settled in. "It'll be another 45 minutes to that section of the preserve, so we'll have lunch on the main road before we go on foot into the territory where Levi is squatting. How's that sound?"

"Dangerous." Erwin's eyes were on Nanaba's reflection in the rear view.

"Which is why I'm going," the dragon insisted stubbornly. "Mike sent me photos of the dragons Levi killed. I’m not letting him go by himself."

"Did you strip your scent?" Erwin asked, knowing when Mike hit the ignition that he wouldn't have an ally there. Likely, they’d worked this out between themselves before Erwin got there.

"Of course I did. I will also situate myself downwind of his position. He was trained for an arena, not for the woods. My guess is that before now he's never truly been outdoors a day in his life. It's an advantage I intend to use."

"And you won't move in unless we have a problem."

"I'm doing this to be cautious, not to be stupid," Nanaba retorted, sitting back in her seat and rolling the windows down in the back. Mike snorted like he didn't quite agree, but he also didn't argue against Nanaba. He simply rolled down the front windows as well and pulled them away from the guard house, turning the nose of their truck towards the heart of the preserve. "Besides,” Nanaba added after a moment. “If you take him down in his dragon form which one of you will be dragging that fucker back to the truck?"

There was a fair bit of logic in that. Erwin couldn't imagine why Levi would want to hang around in his human form for very long all the way out here, surrounded only by the wilderness and the dragons whose territory he'd invaded. He’d be too heavy for the detectives to carry, even lifting together. They would need Nanaba.

"It doesn't look like he's gone very far." Nanaba passed a small tablet forward to Erwin, though Mike leaned over to glance at it as well. It appeared to be streaming a live feed from the thermal monitoring hub back at the administration building.

“You’re getting very high-tech,” Erwin observed appreciatively. “Is this the same Mike who refused to upgrade his phone for nine years because he thought the government was watching him through the camera?”

“The government _is_ watching,” the man insisted, “I just don’t give a shit anymore about what they see.”

“He leaves his phone in a different room when we have sex,” Nanaba outed him casually. “Makes me leave mine too.”

“That is just _common courtesy_ ,” though the pink in his cheeks belied his insistence. “Quit laughing, Erwin. I will leave you in the middle of the preserve.”

Nanaba waved him off, leaning around Erwin’s seat to point to a section just at the edge of the screen. “You can't tell on this readout, but Levi’s position puts him dangerously close to a territory belonging to one of our large males. If he turns that way we'll want to intercept him before Dorian notices him or Levi will be snapped in half. He was fond of Lucille."

“Everyone was fond of Lucille,” Mike sighed. “We were going to ask her to take a couple of the younglings. She fostered many of the dragons here.”

“I'm sorry to hear that she was caught up in all this."

"Yeah," Mike grunted. "Tranquilizers are under the back seat. Do you have any extra clips on you?"

Erwin shifted so he could get to the ones he'd brought with him, leaving one in the drink holder for Mike. "Only as a last resort," he stressed. But if anyone else understood the importance of keeping Levi alive it was Erwin's partner. Mike had been at the preserve since they wrapped up their bust so he'd missed the excruciating details from their opening interrogations, but Erwin had kept him apprised by text. Mike knew they had nothing. The fighters were too afraid and the stable hands were too ignorant and Marty Branch was too loyal or too stupid to know what was in his own best interests.

They needed Levi.

Erwin knew they were close when Nanaba started giving Mike directions, pinching her fingers across the digital map in her lap and reading off signpost numbers as they passed them. The preserve was absolutely enormous and all of it looked more or less identical from the narrow roads. Trees grew large here. They were hundreds of years old, greater than the circumference of Erwin's arms and covered in mosses and lichen, shelf fungi, weird little mushrooms. The shade they cast was so constant and so complete that nothing larger than a fern could establish itself amongst them. Without the map and the signposts, Mike's 4x4 would have been lost in minutes.

Officially, part of the preserve had once been a National Forest. Zacharius Senior was barely older than Mike when he negotiated with the government for its use. As the preserve swelled past its boundaries, however, the land it expanded into was purchased in the private sector. Every few years the Zacharius family would buy up a little more, pressing even farther into rugged foothills to accommodate the ever-growing demand for unoccupied territory. While these sections were privately owned, they were also tax exempt under their designation as a "wildlife refuge." Otherwise, there was no way that Mike could have afforded the ongoing costs of ownership.

"You said you were going to look into placing some of the younglings with Lucille,” Erwin began. “Have you had the opportunity to discuss it with any of your tenants?" There wasn't usually any great demand for foster parents. Both male and female dragons exhibited an instinctive drive to claim orphaned young whether they were mated themselves or not. It was something Erwin had always found curious alongside their highly territorial natures, but Hanji assured him that it made perfect evolutionary sense.

"We haven't been out here until today," Nanaba admitted. "They've kept us fairly busy at the clinic. It would have been a few more days if not for the reports that started coming in. One of the dragons was killed very close to the border of a neighboring territory and we had to move the pair from that one early this morning because they couldn't tolerate the pheromones."

"Where are the bodies now?" Erwin asked. "If it isn't far, I would like to see them for myself."

Nanaba placed two fingers on the screen and closed them, zooming out and showing more of the preserve. "One was found here," the dragon leaned back around Erwin's seat so the screen was in front of him, pointing to a spot close to the perimeter gorge. "Then here and here. It's a direct path to his current location."

"He must have encountered them on his way in," Erwin mused. "And look at the direction he came from. It's almost a straight track from the stable where we found him."

"He flew directly north," Mike agreed. "There are fewer lights up here, so he probably headed this way thinking he'd lose himself in the wilderness."

"Poor fucker found himself on a dragon preserve instead," Nanaba laughed humorlessly. "That's likely why he hasn't moved much. He'll be realizing his mistake and hunkering down until he's rested up enough to keep going. Killing three adult dragons in the same night isn't an effortless undertaking."

"There's no way he hasn't sustained injuries," Mike said. "The way those bodies looked, it was a rough fight."

"We haven't been able to clear them out yet," Nanaba told Erwin. "We had to call someone with heavy equipment, but these locations are another several hours south, so if you bag yourself a drake you won't have time for that kind of detour."

"We took photographs," Mike assured him. "I'll forward them to you as soon as we're in for the day."

"I'd appreciate it,” Erwin said, raising his eyes to the thick trees passing close to his door. “It's incredible Levi made it this far.”

“He's fast, no doubt about it,” Mike agreed. “He'd have had to make it here before that sedative really hit his system. It can't have been a long flight."

“We’ll want to catch him before he tries to move again. I’d prefer to hold off on lunch.”

But Mike was shaking his head. “We’ll need the time to decide on how best to approach his position,” he said. “Nanaba and I haven’t had a chance to work it out.”

Erwin turned in his seat to reach into the back, palm up. “Hand me the map, Nanaba.”

But he didn’t have a lot of time to study it, as it would turn out. Mike drove as quickly as the unpaved road would allow, nudging deeper into the skin of trees and the edge of the preserve, and before long Nanaba had to reclaim the tablet so she could give more detailed instructions.

“Left here,” she said quietly. “Then three intersections ahead. Right.”

They were coming up quickly on Levi’s position.

“Has he moved?” Erwin wanted to know. He was looking right at the map himself, but he couldn’t make heads or tails of the terrain markers they were using. There were actually several large, bright spots scattered across the screen and a good many more that were small--native wildlife, probably.

“Not much, if at all,” Nanaba replied easily. “He may be unconscious.”

“Do you have someone watching these cameras all the time?”

“We have to.” Nanaba was removing her seatbelt before the truck showed any sign of slowing, so Erwin took that to mean they were more or less there. “Signatures for humans, bears, and deer are all roughly the same size on our current system. The only way to be sure of the difference is to watch how they move and investigate anything that seems off. We have a dragon on that, actually. She’s very good.”

Mike didn’t bother pulling off to the side when he stopped, unconcerned by the fact that his truck spanned the entire width of the road. The only other people who drove motor vehicles back there were Mike and Nanaba’s volunteers and they had probably been told not to come that way until Levi was found.

“Here.” The dragon returned the tablet to Erwin and hopped nimbly out of the truck. “Grub’s in the back.”

Erwin and Mike got out as well, though Erwin stepped away from the truck with the tablet in his hands, slowly orienting himself so that he was facing Levi’s position and trying to figure out how the wind was moving. The trees interfered with that some, mixing the slight air currents until it was difficult to determine.

“Nanaba, which way is the wind coming from?”

But she only shrugged, shifting through the ice in her cooler for something to eat. “Right now my nose is mostly human. Reverting to my dragon form would ruin all that work I did in the shower this morning with your scent removing soap. Mike made you a ham sandwich, I think. Or turkey.”

“No, it’s ham. I put an E on it.”

“I can tell you, though, that there isn’t enough air movement for Levi to pick up on us until we’re already pretty close,” Nanaba continued, passing a ziplock bag over her shoulder without looking at Erwin. She was still intent on finding the others. “These conditions are almost ideal, if a little uncertain.”

A little uncertain was one way to put it. Mike and Nanaba returned to the cab with their lunches--a turkey sandwich for Mike and something in tupperware for Nanaba--liver, probably. Erwin climbed into the back of the truck instead of joining him, the thought of cold liver in a confined space making his throat tighten. He sat on the top of the cooler with Nanaba’s tablet balanced on one knee and a packet of peanut butter crackers on the other, concentrating so hard on the problem before him that he didn’t notice how quickly he inhaled the sandwich in his hands until it was gone. Pausing, he leaned back against the glass behind him and sighed, giving his lunch a moment to settle.

Erwin enjoyed coming out to the preserve. It was one of few places that could make Erwin exist in a single moment. Here, the churning in his head settled into soft white noise. The past, the future, cases, evidence, suspects, victims all clamored for his attention, but they were distant and muddled like he’d stepped out of a large conference room and closed the door behind him. Right then, it was different. The preserve tried to quiet him, but he had followed his problems out here today.

Something shifted along the side of the road.

Erwin straightened, his back separating from the window behind him as he leaned forward, his eyes scanning the dense tree line for movement. He wasn’t catching anything, though the sound of vegetation shifting was cautious, deliberate, and it was drawing closer--a large body brushing through foliage. The detective’s mind went, _deer, elk, brown bear_ before the last and final option occurred to him and he drew in a sharp breath, glancing down at the tablet in his lap just in time to catch sight of the bright red heat signature they’d been calling _Levi_ \--now right on top of their position--before a dark body slid out onto the road.

He moved like his muscles were all liquid, like his skeleton posed no limitations as he left the cover of the trees and drew himself to a slow stop. There was caution in Levi’s stance. He held his head low and his wings loose like he was ready to open them if he had to, but there was no misreading the intention behind that direct stare. Slowly, without moving his head, Erwin turned his eyes to the bed of the truck, looking for the rifle that fired tranquilizer darts even though he knew full well that both the gun and its precious ammunition were under Mike’s back seat.

That left him with only his sidearm--a small, holstered weapon tucked safely in his belt with the safety off--and diplomacy. Neither option seemed promising when confronted by that furious stare, the absolute, unwavering intensity with which Levi was studying him. Just the other night Erwin had been grateful for the moderate safety that Levi’s cruel titanium harness afforded them. He’d been thinking about the dragon’s flame bladder and what it could do to him if Levi found an opportunity to use it. How poorly the human body responded to fire.

Erwin knew what would happen to him if he moved, if he moved quickly. The closest available cover was behind him, all the way back around the front of the vehicle. And if Levi tried to torch him there where he sat, Mike and Nanaba were in the cab right behind him. There was only one option available to him and it was flimsy.

“Hey Levi,” the detective called quietly. “Would you like something to eat?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *The cold is not that bad I'm just being a weenie.


	4. Love & War

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Levi learns something new about himself while Erwin becomes more culturally aware. Their revelations are sudden and violent for everyone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chugging right along. The Erwin and Levi interaction begins in earnest starting this chapter. Thank you all for your patience with my inability to tell a story the short way. ._______.
> 
> Thankya [Mandubs](http://harmony283.tumblr.com/) for actually reading this as many times as I rewrote it.

Momentarily, at least, Erwin was pleased to count himself amongst the living. He felt it was no small accomplishment with his position taken into account, the way he and Mike and Nanaba were laid out for Levi like a cluster of pins at the far end of a bowling lane. All the drake had to do was contract that flame bladder and he’d have himself a strike.

But he didn’t. Erwin lived long enough to experience the perspiration that slid into the cleft of his spine, the sharp, hot quiver of his blood where it surged in anticipation of boiling. He lived to feel the way his next breath shook in his chest with the brutal force of adrenaline, his heart driving like a piston into his ribs.

And then, by some miracle, he survived the breath after that one as well.

Levi had a look about him that Erwin didn’t understand. He’d frozen along the edge of the road with the certainty draining slowly from his eyes, all murderous intent dispersing into the air around him like a breath in winter. His attention never left Erwin, seeming perplexed, but no less intent. Erwin’s life was not precious to Levi--the drake would destroy it rather than allow it to impede his own. That was the way he’d been taught to survive.

It almost concerned Erwin more that he hadn’t been attacked yet. It wasn’t in Levi’s nature to hesitate. “I haven’t come to hurt you,” he said anyway, raising his hands to prove that they were empty. Whether or not Levi knew the meaning of the gesture, it put Erwin’s hands where the dragon could see them--a gesture that didn’t require any translation. “Dragons out here don’t work the same way as the ones you know. This is a community and you have killed some of its members. They won’t be thrilled to hear it.”

Levi glanced back over his shoulder into the trees. It was only the barest turn of the head, but it bought Erwin a brief, unscrutinized moment to rap lightly on the truck's rear windshield, hopefully getting his friend’s attention without also attracting Levi’s. He didn’t have another chance. The drake’s head swung back around almost immediately like he and Erwin were polar magnets and he couldn’t ignore the pull. But Erwin needn’t have worried. It wasn’t long before he heard the latch behind him snap open, the weather seal on the small sliding window trying to stick as it was opened.

“Oh shit. _Oh shit._ Erwin do not fucking move. Don’t stare him down. Don’t breathe. Just be really fucking calm, okay?” Nanaba didn’t sound particularly calm herself, but she probably knew more about the damage that an ambitious dragon could do if they set their mind to the task.

“Load the tranq gun,” Erwin muttered, trying to keep his lips still. “If he gets closer …”

 _“Shit._ I’ll try. Mike, slide down in your seat. Levi is …” Her voice dipped too low for Erwin to hear from outside. Hopefully that meant she'd bent over to retrieve the gun and its case of darts. Four breaths, then, “I have it,” she said quietly, her voice right at the gap in the window. “I’m loading it as fast as I can, but at this distance …”

“Nanaba, what is he doing?”

“I don’t know what he’s doing, Erwin. I’m a dragon. That is where Levi and I stop having things in common.”

“Most days,” Mike could be heard saying in the front seat.

“Body language is universal,” Erwin insisted. “What is his telling you?”

“Do you want me to load the gun or watch the drake?” Nanaba snapped. But she did stop. Erwin couldn’t hear her moving anymore on the other side of the glass.

“He’s just standing there.” Perfectly still, like he’d been carved from gleaming obsidian glass. It was difficult to tell, even looking closely for it, whether or not Levi breathed.

“Yeah, I see that. If I didn’t know better …” Nanaba trailed off uncertainly. “It’s almost like he’s …”

“Like he’s what?”

“Shut up for a second and let me watch him.”

What there was to study, Erwin didn’t know. To his eyes Levi looked exactly the same as he had for the past several minutes. The drake had barely moved an inch since he stopped there at the edge of the road, staring at Erwin like he was something from another world.

“Erwin, when you were back in the stable with Levi did you happen to notice whether or not he seemed unusually fixated on you?”

“He wasn’t.” The detective thought back on it, though, trying to recall the details of Levi’s behavior towards himself and the other officers. “He’d fixate on whoever was closest to the stall. First it was Reiner Braun, then it was me.”

Nanaba made an unhappy sound at that, pausing for another long moment. “I have an idea, but if I'm wrong we’ll all be having closed-casket funerals.”

“If it’s better than trying to hit him with a tranq dart at this distance I’ll take it.”

“It isn’t much better,” Nanaba admitted. “I suspect that if you talk to Levi you can get him to come to you. Maybe even follow us out of the preserve. If it works we won’t have to risk shooting him at all.”

“Talking didn’t work at the stable,” Erwin pointed out. They were judging a contest of bad options, but Erwin did want to know where Nanaba had gotten her reasoning. “Why would anything be different now?”

“It’s a theory,” the dragon answered vaguely. “And you better hope it’s a good one. There’s no time to sit here chatting about it.”

“How certain are you?” That was all it boiled down to in the end. Odds.

“Not at all.”

Erwin tipped his head back against the cab of the truck, his eyes rising to the heavy canopy above them. The trees had grown over the road long before there had been a road there to grow over, their limbs mingling like they were reaching out to each other across the divide. Uncertain or not, Nanaba’s idea still trumped the dart. They weren’t close enough to Levi for the tiny needle to penetrate his tough scales.

“Okay,” he said. “But I want you to have that gun ready for a worst case scenario.”

“It’s ready.”

Erwin nodded. He pushed himself to the edge of the cooler, shifting his weight more slowly than he thought he’d ever moved before. Nothing else was forthcoming from the cab of the truck. Erwin was already too far away to risk their voices carrying, taking the peanut butter crackers from his knee and easing into the bed of the truck like he was two hundred years old. Levi wasn’t liking all the activity, craning his long neck like he wanted to keep all of Erwin safely in sight. Finding that he couldn’t see the detective’s lower body, he crossed the road in a couple of swift steps and turned, crossing it again. It was clear that he wanted to move closer, to see the threat he was being faced with, but he was also unwilling to risk moving forward, leaving him to pace the road restlessly as Erwin made his careful way to the tailgate, his eyes never leaving Levi.

“I’m taking off my holster,” Erwin told the dragon. He rose to his knees so that Levi could see him, noting the tension rippling through Levi’s dark frame as he paused to watch Erwin’s hands work the buckle at his hip. The corrugated bed of Mike's truck bit mercilessly into his knees. “You know what this is?” Erwin was reasonably sure that he did. When the holster came free and Erwin caught it in his hands to extend the weapon away from him, Levi tracked every movement like he understood their significance.

The weapon made a dull thunk as it hit the hard-packed dirt over the edge of the truck. “Then you know I’m unarmed.”

Erwin allowed himself to sit, swinging his legs over the tailgate so they dangled freely in space. He thought about asking Levi for a second try at introducing themselves but he hesitated, knowing that the drake wouldn’t have any amendments to make. It had been exactly right, no repeats necessary, bodily harm and all. Thinking back on it, Erwin didn’t have any amendments to make either. He’d go into a stall after Levi again, he would shoot at him again if he thought that people’s lives were in danger. He was sorry, but not because he had to do it. “We met under regrettable circumstances,” he said instead. “But I don’t think it’s too late for us to come to a peaceful arrangement. You’ve already seen that I don’t intend to shoot you.” The detective pulled back the wrapper on the packet of peanut butter crackers, using the tip of his finger to work one of them free.

Levi didn’t seem particularly moved by the sentiment. Nor did he appear to share it.

“You’re in a bad situation here,” Erwin went on. “You’re exhausted and injured and surrounded by hostile dragons that are most certainly looking for you by now. I’m sure you’ve realized that you wouldn’t survive the flight out of here in your condition or you’d have already left. Am I right?”

Levi only looked at him, but Erwin had known better than to expect an answer.

“This is a dragon preserve. I happen to be traveling with the man who owns the land and the dragons living here respect him. We can move you safely from this area or you can kill us and draw attention to your location in the process. It’s your choice. However,” Erwin pulled the peanut butter cracker free and held it out in front of him. “My method includes food and water.”

The gears in Levi’s head were turning so hard that it was almost possible to see them working. The logical choice was clear, the safest option offered up to him on a platter like a Thanksgiving turkey. But Erwin understood his uncertainty. There was no trust between them, nothing for Levi to go on except for Erwin’s word that he wouldn’t hurt him. Stepping from an advantageous position into one of greater vulnerability was an enormous risk, but they were both perfectly aware that staying on the preserve with all of Lucille’s foster children was essentially suicide.

Levi seemed to shrink. Erwin hadn’t been aware that he was even holding his flame bladder open until the dragon breathed a swathe of oily black smoke into the chilly air, his sides narrowing as the organ collapsed. Jesus, had they been that close? Erwin’s heart hammered in his chest as Levi approached--could feel his pulse fluttering in his neck like a butterfly in a jar. All that aggression, all that violence--Erwin could not believe that Levi would come to him this way. He’d been so beyond reason.

But he did come, just as Nanaba said he might. Levi didn’t approach him directly like a human would have, but stepped off the road and made a shallow arc, moving towards Erwin from the side. It was something about being less threatening. Erwin remembered Hanji talking about it, how it was polite to approach a dragon from the side rather than the front. Evidently that was nature rather than nurture because Erwin doubted that anyone had ever bothered teaching Levi how to be polite. The detective held very still and waited, keeping his shoulders angled forward even when they wanted to turn and face the approaching drake.

By a dragon’s standards Levi was small--smaller than any adult Erwin had seen--but the detective still felt minuscule beside him. Levi was a touch larger than a draft horse, his shoulder ending just below Erwin’s standing eye level. At this range there was more than one way Levi could kill him, something that became immediately clear to Erwin when he looked down and caught sight of the dried blood that clung stubbornly to Levi’s talons, left over from one of his previous kills. The detective could feel the temperature rising slightly around him as Levi drew up beside the tailgate, his body still holding heat from the flame bladder he’d almost unloaded on them. Heat came off the drake in waves--slight visual distortions like the ones that radiated from hot pavement in the summer. He didn’t move to take the cracker from Erwin’s fingers, though.

“It’s peanut butter,” the detective assured him, “sandwiched between two crackers. My dragon friend eats these so I know they’re alright.” But it wasn’t the food that gave Levi pause. It was Erwin himself--the necessity of coming within arms length to take anything from him. The drake’s nostrils flared open like they were trying to catch the scent of a dart, maybe gunpowder, but Erwin only huffed a short laugh. “It’s good to be cautious, Levi, but you’re a fighting champion and I’m currently as defenseless as a mealworm. Take the cracker before my arm falls off.”

The dragon blinked, his nictitating membrane visible for a split second beneath the outer eyelid. Growling somewhere deep in his chest, Levi reached out and plucked the food as quickly and nimbly from Erwin’s fingers as a bird might, swallowing the entire thing without chewing. The look he gave Erwin could be loosely translated as, _there you have it, mealworm._

The detective let his arm drop. “There are a few more.”

Levi took those from him more confidently, hesitating less with every tiny offering that changed hands between them. The drake hadn’t exactly relaxed, but he wasn’t thrumming with tension anymore either, tucking his wings closer to his sides like he didn’t expect to need them. Erwin saw all of it as progress. “Would you like some water?” he asked. “There will be something more appropriate for a dragon to eat back at the rehabilitation center, but we do have plenty of water on hand.”

There wasn’t much of a response. Levi only shifted his weight a little and turned his head to look at Erwin with one of his enormous elliptical pupils. But it wasn’t a no, so he detective slid back to the far end of the truck where the cooler was still sitting below the window. How Levi was going to work a water bottle, Erwin had no idea. They didn’t have anything like a doggy bowl available and he figured it would be a little insulting to even if they did.

When he was close enough to the window, he heard Nanaba mutter, “Jesus Christ on a wrecking ball. I was right.”

Erwin glanced up, but only for a moment. The back windshield was tinted, Nanaba’s outline barely visible from the outside, but that was no reason to be careless with his attention. “Someone will need to come back for my sidearm,” Erwin told her. “I don’t want to risk reaching for it now.” His lips barely moved as he lifted the lid on the cooler and paused. Most of their ice had melted into slurry--easily enough for a dragon to drink. Perfect. He reached in to retrieve their remaining bottles of water, setting them aside so they wouldn’t be in Levi’s way. With a mouth that large, he could probably choke on one and then where would they be?

“Yeah,” Nanaba agreed quietly. “Once he finishes the water we’re going to try moving. One of us will come back.”

Erwin nodded, taking hold of the cooler and standing so he could slide it towards Levi. The dragon took a step back, but did not retreat, the promise of water winning out over his caution. He wouldn’t lower his head, though, until Erwin moved away, withdrawing all the way back up to the window.

“Look out for pieces of ice,” Erwin warned him, but he figured that if Levi could swallow an entire peanut butter cracker without any problem the half-melted ice cubes wouldn’t kill him.

Even with Erwin safely out of arm’s length, Levi watched him distrustfully over the rim of the cooler as he guzzled water, his throat working quickly as he swallowed every drop. When he finished that, he could be heard crunching on the remaining ice, lifting his head to toss back entire mouthfuls without any apparent discomfort at the cold.

“Obviously you didn’t find a stream in there,” the detective observed, amiably returning the dragon’s baleful stare. “You can ride back here in your human form if you like.”

Levi shuddered, his whole body rippling like he was trying to shake off water.

“I didn’t think so. Still, it’s only polite to offer.” He gave Nanaba a thumbs up. “Truck’s starting.”

The dragon barely jumped when the engine turned over, but it was a few seconds before he made any move to follow. For a brief, gut-wrenching second Erwin was certain that he wouldn’t come with them, that they would have to use the tranquilizer dart after all and undo the tiny, fragile progress they’d just made. But Levi did follow, allowing them to get some distance ahead of him before falling leisurely into their wake. “Tell Mike to slow down a little,” Erwin told Nanaba, dragging the empty cooler back to the window so he could sit there and talk to the other dragon.

“He has,” Nanaba answered. “Levi slows when he does. He’s maintaining the same distance.”

“That’s fine,” Erwin sighed. “At least he’s following. _Why_ is he following?”

Nanaba cleared her throat uncomfortably. “Because my theory was right.”

“You’ve said. But you didn’t give any details about what that theory was.” And he could sense her reluctance to do so.

Nanaba took a breath like she was steadying herself. “Levi is experiencing the first stages of the courtship process. The allure. Sorry, Erwin.”

Courtship process. Allure. The words did not compute. There was no place for them in any reckoning of his relationship with the drake behind them. “He was going to kill me.”

“Maybe. Maybe he thought he was. I don’t know.”

“I do. I saw it in the way he looked at me. He came out here to kill me. No one’s feelings change that quickly, like they blink and they’re gone.”

“You’re right,” Nanaba agreed. “But the courtship drive doesn’t change the way a dragon feels. It doesn’t make us look at you any differently. It’s a curiosity--an insatiable need to _know_. He’s fascinated by you, that’s all.”

Nanaba spoke as though it all made perfect sense.

“How?” Erwin wanted to know. “We got off to a terrible start. I don’t see how any interest could come out of the way we met.”

Nanaba thought about that for a minute before she answered him. “Obviously attraction is subjective, but there are commonalities. Humans agree more often than not on what it means to be attractive. It’s the same way with dragons. Our criteria is a little different, but the concept is the same. Some people are more attractive to the average dragon than others. Some people are more likely to get our attention.”

“If you’re about to tell me that dragons find Erwin attractive--” Mike called from the front seat.

“Erwin is exceptionally attractive,” Nanaba said honestly. “If he had more direct exposure to unmated dragons he’d have offers all the time.”

“Jesus Christ,” Mike mirrored Erwin’s own thoughts on the matter.

“Levi would have to be dead not to notice,” Nanaba went on. “But attraction alone doesn’t trigger the allure. Sometimes it has nothing at all to do with it at all. The most important thing is that you did something somewhere along the way that made him curious.”

“Curious enough that he’d stop himself from killing me?”

“Well, why do you guess he wanted to kill you?” Nanaba asked him reasonably. “Was it personal or was it because he knew that you came to take his freedom away?” She cut herself off immediately, though, and Erwin could hear the wince in her voice when she went on. “I’m sorry, Erwin. I didn’t mean it that way.”

“No, I know what you meant,” the detective assured her, his voice perfectly even--too even, maybe. “I did come to take his freedom away.”

“I know you don’t want to,” Nanaba replied quickly, her tone still apologetic. “I only mean that maybe he’s still trying to defend himself.”

“He’s willing to give it up now, though. For curiosity.”

“It’s an intense curiosity,” Nanaba corrected him. “It isn’t something that passes. Have you ever needed to know something so badly that you would walk through fire for the answer? It keeps you up at night. It makes you brave when you know you should be smart instead.” She nodded to Levi, who was still back there on the road behind them. Impossibly. He had to know that he was going willingly to his own confinement.

“That sounds miserable,” Erwin replied honestly.

“It can be.” But there was a smile in Nanaba’s voice that belied the words. “It can be so many things.”

“Alright, then what happens from here?” Erwin asked. “He’s just going to follow me all the way home like a stray puppy?”

“Yes,” Nanaba agreed. “Exactly like a stray puppy. Just keep him away from other puppies and everyone will survive the trip home.”

“And about the courtship? What can be done about that?”

From the corner of his eye Erwin saw Nanaba shrug--or a movement that could have been a shrug, anyway. “You aren’t bound to anything,” she said, and he felt his shoulders relax minutely. “Neither is he. If you tell him that you aren’t interested he will take that as the answer he’s looking for and move on. Likewise, he may decide that he doesn’t want to pursue you once he knows more about you. He’d be easier to deal with if you allow the courtship to persist, of course, but it would be kinder for both of you if you end it before it can begin. Um. After you get him off of the preserve, if you don’t mind.”

Erwin laughed and there was relief in the sound. Levi’s head perked up in interest. “If you insist.”

Nanaba grinned at him through the glass. “Overwhelmed?”

“I’ve had stranger days.” Erwin was certain that had to be true, but he couldn’t come up with an example of one if Nanaba asked. She was opening her mouth--probably to do just that--when Mike said something from the front seat that made her head turn.

“Goddamn it.”

“What?”

The truck was slowing.

“Stay where you are, Erwin. Don’t get out.” Nanaba did, though, and so did Mike. They were throwing their doors open as quickly as they could and when Erwin caught sight of Levi he had a sickening suspicion that he knew why.  

The drake looked as defensive as Erwin had ever seen him, slinking up against the side of the truck as though the threat that Erwin posed had just become nonexistent. He ignored the blonde completely, his back arched and his wings held away from his body as he came to a stop right alongside Erwin. It was a threat display if Erwin had ever seen one. Levi was clearly trying to appear as large as possible, the scales along his heavy jaw lifting in alarm. Erwin could feel the tension crackling around him like static, heat rolling off him in waves as his ribcage swelled to accommodate the flame bladder as it filled.

Slowly, Erwin stood, nudging the cooler out of the way so he could step right up and look over the top of the cab at the road in front of them. It was immediately apparent what didn’t belong there.

Mike and Nanaba had stopped a little ways in front of the truck, unconsciously moving closer together as they faced the stranger that had come to address them. He was naked, for starters, but it wasn’t something he seemed to be paying attention to. He looked comfortable that way, his arms crossed over his bare chest as he regarded Mike and Nanaba with a deep scowl. Even wearing a look that sour, his face was a sight worth lingering over. The stranger was fierce and beautiful, every inch of him appearing as carefully rendered as chiseled stone.

“Afternoon, Dorian,” Mike called easily. “What can we do for you?”

Dorian’s eyes moved to Levi, his expression unchanging. Why he didn’t seem impressed by the look that Levi was giving him, Erwin couldn’t say. It would make the detective think twice-- _had_ made him think twice. But Dorian merely snorted and returned his attention to Mike and Nanaba, actually daring to take his eyes off the bristling dragon.

“I saw the little drake skulking around my territory a night ago.” Dorian spoke slowly, his cadence languid and self-assured. He knew exactly where he stood on the food chain and it was undoubtedly someplace high. There was nothing contrived about his confidence. “I held off killing him per your preference, but I heard that he murdered Lucille. Is that true?”

That time when he made eye contact with Levi his intentions were clearly stated. Dorian’s posture never changed, but something wild and violent sprung to life in him, filling him with lethal intensity. Nanaba sidestepped quickly into the space between the two males, instantly putting herself into the most dangerous position it was possible to be in. Erwin didn’t dare call out to her, not wanting to set anyone off, but he did look over at Levi, wondering if the drake would listen if he asked him nicely not to incinerate his friend.

“Dorian, this is Levi,” Nanaba said quickly. “He’s identified a possible candidate for courtship and he is leaving with him now. There’s no need for any fighting.”

The other drake’s eyebrows rose in amusement. “Is that so?” He asked, though he paused as his dark eyes turned upwards, regarding Erwin with undisguised interest. “You’re the one who has accepted this drake’s suit?”

Erwin decided it best to go for the neutral response, not wanting to turn Levi away before he was safely in custody, but also not wanting to encourage him more than he had to. “I haven’t accepted or declined.” He figured that was the safest response.

When Nanaba groaned, Erwin knew he’d said the wrong thing.

“No?” Dorian’s eyes slid lower, though there wasn’t much more of Erwin visible around the cab of the truck. He grinned lazily. “I’ll volunteer some advice then. Save yourself for an actual dragon. What you’ve got there is a pixie.”

Beside him, Levi let out a low, terrible growl. It wasn’t the same sound he’d made over the peanut butter cracker. This was an expression of utter hatred. It took a practical demonstration for Erwin to understand the difference. By comparison, Levi had never truly threatened Erwin. He’d just been grumpy.

“Irresistible as you are, you’ll have offers from every quarter,” Dorian continued, blithely ignoring Levi as though he barely existed. “In fact, I may follow you home myself.”

Nanaba barely had time to get the words, _“Dorian, don’t--”_ from her mouth before the drake lunged. His transition from human to dragon was so fluid and so immediate that human feet left the ground and a dragon’s wings caught him before he touched it again. Still, Nanaba went down hard trying to duck under his body, which seemed like an explosion the way it changed, his enormous wings surging downwards. Erwin saw Nanaba move but didn’t see the landing, forced to drop below the edge of the cab himself to avoid decapitation. A frantic flurry of movement beside him announced that Levi was reacting, scrabbling to turn and open his own wings before Dorian was on top of him. Everything happened so quickly that the pair of them were already over a hundred yards away by the time Erwin looked up again, feeling the displaced air crashing over him long after Dorian sliced past.

It was clear to him immediately why the unfamiliar dragon had not been concerned by Levi’s posturing. There had been little reason for him to be. He was easily the largest living creature Erwin had seen in person, approaching the size of a small townhouse with scales the exact color of dried blood. Levi appeared to be well ahead of him, gaining distance as they crashed upwards through the canopy, made a sharp right and disappeared over the tops of the trees. But the distance between them was dangerously small.

“Nanaba!” Erwin vaulted over the edge of the truck and skirted around to the front. “Are you alright?”

But she was already climbing to her feet, shouting, _“Fucking show off!”_ with fury in every syllable that spilled from her mouth. _“Asshole!”_

“What the hell was all that?” Erwin asked.

“That was some shit luck,” Mike sighed, catching Nanaba’s elbow and pulling her into his side. “That’s what that was.”

Nanaba rolled her eyes at Erwin, looping one arm loosely around Mike’s hips and lifting the other bleeding elbow to look at it. “Dorian liked you, apparently. He’ll kill Levi for the right to court you in his place.” She wiped the dirt and blood onto the side of her ruined shirt with little concern for the pain, barely wincing.

“He didn’t even know my name and he’s going to kill someone so he can woo me?”

“Those courtship fights can get pretty rough, but dragons don’t normally die as a result of them. Ordinarily someone will concede long before that happens, but with Levi’s history and Dorian’s vendetta ...” Mike shook his head. “One of them will probably die.”

“And then the winner will call you,” Nanaba muttered drily.

“I don’t want anyone to call me,” Erwin told them, like letting them know it would make any difference. “I just want my witness in one piece.”

Nanaba snorted, though. “Fat chance of that. Dorian is one of the largest dragons on this preserve. If he wants Levi dead, Levi will die.”

“Then we need to go after them,” Erwin said briskly, either missing the way his friends looked at each other or choosing to ignore it. “How far into the preserve does your infrared monitoring go?”

“It doesn’t matter.” Mike pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead like it was hurting him. “I want Levi as much as you do, Erwin, but an uncontained dragon fight isn’t something you want to see up close. We might could find them, but we’re just as likely to die trying. It isn’t worth it.”

Erwin reached up to pinch his own nose, an almost-mirror to Mike. He shook his head, but did not protest. These two knew dragons best. If they said it wasn’t safe then it wasn’t and they were right about one thing. Levi was important, this case was important, but it wasn’t worth their lives.

“We need to move,” Mike said quietly. “The fight could spill back this way. We need to get out of this area as quickly as we can.”

Erwin nodded, but he didn’t immediately turn to go. He was staring back down the road after the dragons as though Levi would miraculously appear through the trees and land behind the truck again so he could continue following them out. When Mike dropped a hand onto his shoulder, he actually jumped.

“It’s over,” the larger man said.

And it was. Erwin had lost his witness for the second time.


	5. Up In The Air

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Poor creature. He’s lost too much as it is.”_
> 
> _It took Erwin a moment to realize that Grisha was referring to the blood._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has a **TRIGGER WARNING** for medical situations. I won't go into much more detail than that lest I risk too many spoilers, but if you are bothered by anything that might occur in a hospital or doctor's office, please skip or skim the relevant sections. There's a decent lead-in, so I'm hoping it's pretty apparent when that part of the chapter is coming up. If you need to skip things and you want a summary of what happened, you are always welcome to message me here or on [tumblr](http://merkase.tumblr.com/). Thanks! =D
> 
> Thanks also to [Mandible](http://harmony385.tumblr.com/), who continues to read SO many drafts. Guys, I can't even tell you.

Erwin didn’t make it home until well after dark. There hadn’t been much point in looking at the corpses that Levi had left--not anymore--but Erwin believed they could salvage something from the wreckage with the photographs they’d taken. It wasn’t enough. It was only a shred of what they had lost and did not lift anyone’s spirits in the slightest, but photographic documentation of what the fighting ring had created would be damning when they brought it to court. Jurors responded well to photographs. And it was good for all of them to keep thinking like there would be someone to put on trial.

The detective lived somewhere between the city and the wilderness. His property butted up against a county road on one side and an endless cattle pasture on the other, his own land large enough that he didn’t have to see or smell them unless he took a walk through the woods. His neighbors to the left used their land as a hunting property through parts of the year and only had a small cabin set up while the land on his right still belonged to the state and was undeveloped. As a result it was normally very quiet around Erwin’s neck of the woods--something he’d come to appreciate as he accumulated job stress over the years. He certainly appreciated it that night.

Erwin ached. He hurt in a way that went beyond physical work, though he’d done quite a bit of that over the last several hours as well. His was the soul-deep exhaustion that came with trying your damnedest and getting so close to success that you could smell its laurel-y breath only to watch everything fall apart at the last second. It was a hazard of the career path he’d chosen. Cases that many people had busted their asses trying to solve went abruptly cold, evidence fell through, suspects clammed up after weeks of questioning. Erwin was familiar with how close a person could get. These cases were built like houses of cards, lifted to enormous heights and always teetering.

But losing Levi had hit Erwin hard. He wiped his hands over his face, nudging the front door closed with his foot and raking his fingers right on backwards through his hair. The detective needed a shower. What he did instead was go to the kitchen for a glass of scotch, which he downed too quickly by the black window over his sink, staring at his own washed-out reflection in the dark glass. He never bothered drawing the blinds, figuring the deer didn’t mind seeing him in his bath robe. If they did, they never complained.

Erwin was halfway up the stairs with his shoes under his arm and his shirt mostly undone, already thinking beyond the shower and towards his bed when something just outside set his SUV off. The detective paused on the stairs, his fingers stilling over the final button as he listened to the vehicle’s hoarse bleating. Erwin’s fighting ring case involved some dangerous people who were looking to lose everything if he picked up on their involvement and sought them out. There was no telling what larger connections they had or how deep their pockets went--plenty and plenty deep if the expense involved in the operation was any indicator.

The detective turned on his heel and sped back down the steps, his footfalls as light as a dancer's. He jumped the last two and landed low, keeping his head down as he skirted around through the living room to the kitchen where an extra firearm lay tucked away in one of the drawers, hidden safely behind the cutlery. He kept it loaded and ready with the safety flipped on so all he had to do was crouch there on the floor out of sight and reach up with one hand to retrieve it.

Erwin slipped out quietly through the back. He didn't see a soul in the overgrown yard, nor was anyone trying to slip up along the side of the house. Nothing moved apart from the shadows that shifted under his SUV's flashing headlights and he heard nothing over the persistent alarm. But that also meant that _he_ would not be heard. He moved quickly up the side yard, pressing his shoulder to the far corner and pausing to slow himself down again before he leaned forward cautiously, his weapon ready for whatever he found on the other side.

He had been prepared to shoot someone, steeling himself for the inevitability of unwanted human conflict. He'd been ready to deal with a wiring problem--a thorough search of the property revealing nothing more than a faulty car alarm. He'd even briefly considered the possibility of a curious bear. They came down sometimes to express interest in the cows next door--maybe once every few years. And they were about due for a brown bear roundup.

Erwin had not been prepared for a dragon.

He knew right away that something was urgently wrong. Levi’s posture could only be described as _crumpled_ , though it was impossible in the erratic light from Erwin’s high beams to determine what exactly the damage was. He was trying to drag himself to his feet, every muscle in his body shaking with immense effort. When he saw Erwin, though, he froze.

“Levi?”

Stepping towards him was a mistake. In the frantic moment that followed, Erwin wasn’t quite so concerned with his own safety as that of the dragon’s. Levi was up in an instant, scrabbling to put more distance between himself and Erwin until his joints buckled and he went down hard on his chest, his chin brushing the grass.

“Wait, stop, I’m not going to move!” Erwin shouted over the car alarm. He took the opportunity to toss his gun into the grass behind him while Levi’s eyes were closed, his side heaving with exertion. He’d almost backed himself right out of the light cast by the SUV’s headlights, but it wasn’t dark enough that Erwin’s eyes missed the bright glimmer of liquid along the drake’s side. It didn’t look like water. “I’m not going to come over there, okay? Just lie still.” He backed away several steps to prove it, raising his hands more automatically than anything. Levi was in no position to hurt him now. He must have hit Erwin’s car on his way down, setting off the alarm. “I’ll be right back. I need to turn the car off. Lie still, Levi.”

Erwin would have to go back around the way he came. Despite living out in the middle of nowhere he didn’t take any risks with his personal security. When he got home each evening he turned the deadbolts behind him and this one hadn't been any different. Reluctant as he was to leave the dragon someplace out of sight, there was no real risk of Levi going anywhere. He hadn’t landed in Erwin’s yard by accident and he didn’t look capable of dragging his broken body back into the air even if he had. He must have been flying on adrenaline alone, but now that he'd stopped ...

As soon as the detective was safely hidden by the corner of the house, Erwin turned and bolted, sprinting for the back door like he was going for a medal. He tore through the house in a whirlwind, cutting back through the kitchen and the living room and slowing only the barest half-step to snatch his car keys from their hook by the back door. He drew up short, though, at the front of the house, leaning forward to look out at the lawn.

Levi had not moved. So far as Erwin could tell he hadn't even raised his head from where it rested on the grass. This went beyond anything the detective knew how to fix, but his phone was in his back pocket and he did have one number he could dial.

While it rang Erwin busied himself with the little key fob that would silence his car, killing the lights in the process and plunging his front yard into darkness. Before Levi could grow too accustomed to the change, Erwin went ahead and flipped the switch on his porch floods, brightening the area much more efficiently than his headlights had. Right about then the call connected, a voice on the other end asking, “Hello?” just in time for Erwin to catch a good look at his witness and realize that he’d chosen the right person to dial first.

“Good evening, Grisha. It’s Erwin Smith. Are you available for an emergency house call?”

“Always,” Doctor Jaeger replied without hesitation. “But I wasn’t aware that you had a dragon.”

“I don’t. The dragon that escaped from our custody two nights ago just landed on my front lawn. He’s been in a dragon fight and it looks serious.”

That time, there was a short silence on the other end of the line.

“It’s a long story,” was all Erwin could offer him. “Hurry, please. I live on the CR-11.”

“I live out that way also. Text me with your address and I’ll be there as quickly as I can. I keep the mobile clinic at home for emergencies like this one.”

“Thank you, Doctor. I’ll send it now.”

Erwin hung up and typed his own address into the message window, anxious to get back outside to Levi like being there could prevent the dragon’s death. He turned the deadbolt and stepped out, forcing himself to move at the average land speed of a three-toed sloth. Still, the dragon shifted as soon as Erwin hit the top of the porch steps. “Levi, you’re safe. There’s no one else here.”

Levi’s eye rolled back to look at him and Erwin had never seen another creature look that distressed. The anxiety associated with being injured and vulnerable before an untrustworthy party had to be taking its toll on his life expectancy as well. Erwin wasn’t a doctor, but he’d seen people injured--many of them gravely. He knew what it looked like when it was bad, when a person was on their way out. _He’d_ come to Erwin, though. Erwin hadn’t been the one to chase Levi down--not this time. Something about that must have made sense to the dragon or he wouldn’t have been there.

“I’ve called someone who will know what to do. You don’t like him much either, but he’s a doctor. He’ll be able to make you well.” Erwin took the first step, pausing when Levi shifted like he wanted to move. “Stop it. You’re going to have to let us get near you if you want any help.”

Levi snorted, dark blood spattering the dewy grass, but Erwin’s words hadn’t changed anything. His next step down had the dragon rolling like he would try to get up.

“I think you may be dying.” When Levi stilled, he went on. “You can probably tell, can’t you? Stop for a second and pay attention to yourself.” He gave Levi a moment, standing there on the second step with his hand resting lightly on the rail. “You won’t survive without medical attention. I’ve called someone who can administer that treatment, but you can’t be stubborn about it. We don’t have time for that now. _You_ don’t have that kind of time. So enough playing.”

Erwin counted to five in his head before he took the next step down and surprisingly, Levi did not move. Maybe it was exhaustion that made him willing to cooperate. Maybe he truly did understand the gravity of his injuries. The detective approached him slowly after that, but it wasn’t quite sloth speed. There was no sense in drawing it out. He simply walked over and seated himself several feet away from the dragon’s head, staying where Levi could see him without straining.

“It wouldn't be difficult to kill you now if that was what I wanted. Obviously, I haven’t and that should tell you something about my motives. If you trust me in no other way, trust me to keep you alive to the best of my ability. Keep your eyes open,” he added when Levi’s eyelids started to droop. “The vet won’t be long. Look at me.” Erwin waited for Levi’s focus to sharpen before he went on. “Cooperate like this for him as well. He’s coming all this way to save you, so making things difficult would only be killing yourself.”

Levi sighed. There was no way of knowing if it was an acquiescence or simply a sigh. Pain, perhaps, if he was still capable of feeling pain. The way he looked, he may very well have been beyond it.

“‘You should see the other guy,’ right?” Erwin asked him softly. The drake’s eye slid lazily up to look into the detective’s face. “He didn’t follow you, did he?” The last thing anyone needed was for round two of the dragon death match to spill across his front lawn. Levi had to be a quick flier just as Mike said--his ability to make it so far with a sedative in his system had proved that. How far ahead of Dorian would that put him? How much time did they have? “Is there any way that Dorian can find you here? Can he track you like you tracked me?”

Levi just closed his eyes.

“Levi. Look at me.”

When the drake did not react, Erwin reached out and lay his hand on Levi’s jaw. It was something you weren’t supposed to do--touch an unmated dragon. It was grossly impolite and perhaps somewhat threatening and dragons just didn’t do it. They didn’t touch humans, they didn’t touch each other. They touched younglings if they were their own, or on cases like Lucille’s, foster younglings. They touched their mates, their reciprocals, the way Mike and Nanaba touched each other. Even Erwin and Hanji, close as the four of them were, had never touched Nanaba intentionally.

Levi’s visible eye flew open.

“Do I need to go into the house and load my hunting rifle?” Erwin asked him seriously, drawing his hand away when Levi tried weakly to shake him off. He wasn’t sure that even a hunting rifle would slow a dragon of Dorian’s size, but there were perhaps a few places that a well-aimed shot would penetrate. His low-caliber sidearm would be virtually useless, though. “Blink once for yes.”

Levi only glowered at him until his strength petered out. Then it was back to _look at me_ and _open your eyes_. It was getting harder to keep the drake present and alert and towards the end, right before Grisha showed up, he wasn’t even sure that Levi knew where he was. Erwin had resorted to touching him every time his eyes closed, jumping Levi awake only to find the drake less responsive with each repetition. “You would die before the vet got here, wouldn’t you?” Erwin asked him. “If it weren’t so permanent you’d do it to spite me. I can see you thinking about it.” Levi blinked the hazy film from his eyes, but Erwin didn’t think he really understood. “You better decide fast. Grisha is here.” He’d seen the vet’s headlights through the trees. “Remember what I told you about good behavior and life expectancy.”

The dragon’s breath shuddered in his massive chest.

Grisha rolled up the unpaved, but well-kept driveway in his mobile clinic just as he’d promised Erwin he would. He was speaking over the sound of the rattly truck engine before he even climbed down, throwing the door wide so he could lean his head out. “Call his symptoms to me.”

“He’s dying,” was the detective’s first and immediate response. “He’s barely conscious. Delirious, maybe. I can’t tell. I don’t think he comprehends what I say.”

The vet didn’t appear to be listening, jumping down from the front seat and moving briskly to the back. But after he pulled the doors open with a decisive crash he looked around the corner of the truck at Erwin. “Go on.”

“He’s bleeding from the nose and his breathing sounds wet. There are a number of physical injuries that I can see, but none of them look bad enough to kill him like this unless there’s something on the other side that’s worse.”

“Let me examine him,” Grisha said briskly, though he stopped some distance away with his heavy bag tucked under his arm, undoubtedly remembering Levi’s temperament. “How out of it is he?”

“We’ve had a talk about the proper way to treat people who are trying to help you,” Erwin told him. “I think it sunk in.”

“I’m sure.” But Grisha squinted thoughtfully at the dragon’s half-lidded eye for a long moment before he deemed it safe to approach. “He doesn’t look good. I’m going to read his vitals, but I can guarantee they won’t be strong.” The vet stepped around the fallen dragon, giving him a wide berth until he was safely around the back of him where he could work with less risk. “Move out of his reach, Erwin. How did this happen?”

The detective moved around the back of Levi as well, deciding to linger close to the dragon’s head when he saw that one bleary eye still trying to focus on him. “He made it all the way up to Mike and Nanaba’s preserve.”

“I see. Then it’s no wonder you couldn’t find him. He wasn’t here to be found. Tell me the rest.”

“He got into it with another drake over someone Levi killed on his way in. Then the other drake challenged Levi for courtship rights.”

Grisha glanced up from the bell-shaped stethoscope he had pressed to the thinner scales just behind Levi’s mandible. “Rights to you?” But he already knew the answer because he went on. “He followed you back here, then, after the fight. The courtship drive will keep him close. I would say that you’re fortunate, but considering who this dragon is … do you know anything about the challenger’s status?”

“No,” Erwin admitted. “But if Levi followed me here then Dorian will be able to as well. Is that true?”

“I’m afraid so.” Grisha pulled the stethoscope from his ears and returned it to his bag, exchanging it for a strange looking object that the detective had never seen before. “And with Levi in this condition, you will be defending him if Dorian does come to claim you.” He cupped his palm around the back of the object and held it up to Levi’s nose until it beeped, then he frowned thoughtfully at the readout screen. Without explaining what any of that meant, he returned the item to his bag as well and produced a thermometer. Erwin wondered where Grisha was going to put that for approximately two seconds, thinking of all those pointed teeth in Levi’s mouth and thinking perhaps a nostril or ear canal would be their best bet before Grisha got up and moved matter-of-factly to kneel by Levi’s hip. Oh.

“If Dorian shows up and I tell him I’m not interested, would that end the fight?” Erwin averted his eyes quickly as Grisha reached around the drake’s tail with the thermometer in hand. Levi tensed, but in his condition there was nothing he could really do except try to intercept Grisha with that heavy tail. The vet barely seemed to notice.

“It may. Ordinarily your disinterest would end a fight for courtship rights, but it sounds like there was also a personal element to this dispute. He would probably kill Levi anyway if you gave him half the chance.”

“I don’t intend to.” Erwin could understand being upset over a murdered foster parent. He didn’t want to kill Dorian over a natural response that Erwin could sympathize with, but if it came down to Dorian or Levi there was no contest. The thermometer beeped. Grisha held it up to the porch light to get the reading. Then, while he was down there he pulled a large blood pressure cuff from his bag and hooked it around the base of Levi’s tail.

“That’s where you take a dragon’s blood pressure?” Erwin asked. That had to be the last place he expected.

“Horses too. It’s the easiest place to get an accurate reading.”

“Hmm. The more you know.”

“His blood pressure is very low,” Grisha told him after a moment. “Help me lift this leg out of the way. He isn’t going to like it.”

Levi did try weakly to tug his leg out of their grasp when they took hold of it to expose his softer belly, but he accomplished little. He barely made a sound--a gurgling wheeze the most he could manage. “Settle down,” Erwin told him, helping Grisha roll the drake a little farther onto his side. “It’s not as bad as dying.”

As it would turn out, Levi’s scales became smaller as they circled around his sides, lightening in color to a very delicate gray. The gradient was perfect. Evidently the scales were thinner across his abdomen as well because all the dark mottling they found there looked like something that lay beneath them. It wasn’t a part of his natural pigmentation.

“Is that bruising?” Erwin asked the veterinarian, who shook his head grimly and moved to lower Levi’s leg.

“The worst of the damage he took was internal. His blood pressure is low because he’s going into shock.” Grisha gestured towards the dragon's abdomen. “You were correct,” he determined. “It's a fatal injury."

"I'm detecting very little optimism in your tone."

Grisha pushed his fingers beneath his glasses to wipe at his tired eyes. "At this stage, it would be kindest to put him down. He's in a lot of pain and trying now to save him will only prolong his suffering."

"Not if he lives," the detective pointed out.

"He is unlikely to survive treatment. It's been too long now and the surgery would be traumatic. Even putting him under at this point could kill him. I'm sorry, Detective." It seemed like a lot of people were apologizing to him lately where Levi was concerned.

"If he’s dying anyway, then there's little to be lost in trying."

"There's little for who to lose?" Grisha asked him gently. "If Levi doesn't make it, and he almost certainly won't, then he'll die a messy, horrible death. The blood around his nostrils indicates that he's bleeding into his lungs. If he doesn't suffocate soon there's no telling how painfully his other injuries will kill him. We don't know what else is affecting him."

"I respect your medical expertise, Doctor. If you say it would be kind to put him down, then I believe you." Erwin was shaking his head, though. "In most cases I would have no argument to make, but this isn't an ordinary situation. Levi's testimony would save hundreds of other dragons from sharing a similar fate. To that end, I am willing to be cruel. What do I need to help you with?"

Grisha stared hard at the detective, then at Levi, his brows making a troubled furrow over the top of his glasses. "It’s your decision,” he pronounced slowly. “Come with me, I need some things from the truck."

Erwin became the veterinarian’s assistant, then. He stood at the back of the mobile clinic and took the items that Grisha passed down to him, noting instructions like _put that in the bag_ and _don’t lay that in the grass_. Many of the objects moving through his hands made little sense to him. Some looked like medieval torture devices while others were simply alien, but occasionally there was something he could make logical guesses about. He was pretty sure, for example, that the item in his left hand was meant to dispense surgical adhesive, but only because of the context. In any other situation he might have guessed it was a hot glue gun. The spotlight and stand were also fairly self explanatory.

“That’s electrical,” Grisha told him. “If you need to run the cord into your house I have an extension cord.”

“There’s an outdoor outlet on the porch we can use.”

“Wait,” Grisha called from the back of the truck. “Take this one too.” He handed Erwin a second light stand and Erwin walked both over to the dragon, pausing only to set them down and unspool the cords before heading up the front steps to plug them into the outside wall. His porch lights dimmed briefly when the vet flipped them on, his breakers straining with the high voltage.

“They’re metal halides,” Grisha warned him. He’d spread a simple all-weather tarp over the grass just behind Levi while Erwin worked and he was moving the lights into position when the detective returned. “The hoods will burn you if you touch them. We’ll need to roll him onto this.”

Even between the two of them, simply redistributing the dragon’s weight was a challenge. The angle was awkward and Levi squirmed unhelpfully, but the action was too feeble for anyone to tell whether he was attempting to cooperate or get away from them. Erwin could make an educated guess, though. “You’re going to need that stubbornness later,” he told the drake. “Conserve it for now.”

They had to roll him over once more before he lay fully on the tarp and the sound he made as his broken insides shifted was terrible.

“It isn’t too late to call this off,” Grisha said quietly, holding up a hand for Erwin to pause as the ailing dragon moved, trying in vain to get comfortable. There was no doubting that the dragon suffered. Every breath he took gurgled wetly from someplace deep in his chest, the agony clear in his eyes on the rare occasion he was able to get them open enough for anyone to see it. Erwin had to look at that and tell Grisha to continue, to not only condone something that was tortuous for Levi but also push the vet to move forward when he didn’t feel that it was right.

“Keep going,” he said tightly.

“I’m not using general anesthesia because he would need constant airway support and I don’t think he would survive it. A sedative really isn’t enough, but it’s the best I can do.” Grisha kneeled to empty a syringe into Levi’s neck, but his reservations in doing so were clear. He set up his things as they waited for the drug cocktail to take effect, seating himself at Levi’s ruined abdomen and arranging his tools around him the way he wanted them. He didn’t say a word to Erwin until some time had passed and he’d checked the drake for consciousness only to find him sedated to his satisfaction. “Do exactly as I say,” he told the detective then. “This needs to happen as quickly as possible.”

“I’ll do whatever I need to.”

“Yes,” the vet agreed without inflection. “I know.”

There was no telling how long they worked on Levi. By the time Erwin could spare a thought for the time, they had almost finished. Grisha was tireless, bending over Levi with handfuls of gauze and carefully shifting organs aside as he searched for the source of the bleeding. Erwin wasn’t even sure what part of Levi’s body they were looking at most of the time. It all looked like the same mess to him. Grisha didn’t narrate, either. He asked Erwin to hand him things, to sterilize things. He passed the detective instruments and used pieces of gauze and only periodically withdrew to wipe his forehead on his sleeve. The metal halides put off a lot of heat and the stands were close enough to their workspace that even in the chilly autumn air both men were perspiring.

At intervals, Grisha had Erwin check the drake’s airway and his pulse. Erwin learned where exactly to find that faint, stubborn flutter of life. His hand was hovering in front of Levi’s bloody nostrils, feeling the drake’s warm, impossible breath across his palm, when Grisha finally spoke.

“I’ve found it. Open that bottle of water.”

The vet had something in his free hand that looked a lot like a long match, but it was only after he dipped the end into the bottle Erwin was holding and flicked off the excess that the detective had to ask. “What is that?”

Grisha reached back into Levi and pressed the end of the strange item against some part of him--the wound site, probably. Only as he withdrew did he answer. “It’s silver nitrate. For cauterizing.”

Grisha used most of the sticks he had there on his stainless steel tray in one place, but Erwin couldn’t make heads or tails of what he was doing from where he sat.. The vet continued on for a while after that, looking for more damage, Erwin guessed, but he only used the silver nitrate a couple more times on smaller injuries. When he was satisfied that he’d gotten everything, he sat back. “Without running any scans I can’t be sure that’s all of it, but I’ve checked him carefully. If there is anything left it’s small.”

“And that will heal itself?” Erwin asked.

“Most likely. But it’s too soon to get your hopes up. I’m going to need you to hold this incision closed while I glue it.”

Erwin nodded, rising to his knees so he could bend over Levi and place his hands where Grisha wanted them. He was amazed at how quickly the adhesive took hold and cured, how soon he was able to let go of Levi and let the glue do its work. “I’m going to leave this with you in case he ruptures the adhesive,” Grisha told him. “You’ll have to keep him from shifting back and forth between his two forms. The glue was designed to move with his body to some extent, but too many transitions will compromise its integrity. He will need to choose a form and stay in it.”

“I would be surprised if he ever leaves this one,” Erwin replied honestly. “I think he feels safer this way.” Who wouldn’t?

“He will need to,” Grisha replied. “When he wakes up you _must_ convince him to change into his human shape so that he can be moved. It’s too cold out here for a recuperating dragon to tolerate. He will be particularly sensitive to hypothermia after being sedated for this long.”

“That and we have brown bears in the area.”

“He should be safe in your barn if you can ensure that the door is secure,” Grisha answered, gathering his scattered equipment and dropping it all onto the tray.

“Not the barn. I don’t want him waking up there,” Erwin disagreed. “It’s too similar to the stable and he might react defensively or hurt himself trying to escape.”

Grisha paused, his hands full of gauze. “I understand your reasoning, but keeping him in your house isn’t safe. You’ve indicated that he’s unpredictable and he’s shown us both on several occasions that he’s violent.”

“Keeping him in the barn would be worse,” Erwin disagreed. “And you’ve said the front lawn isn’t an option. There also isn’t any heating in the barn. That leaves the house.”

Grisha shook his head slowly. “I hope you have homeowner’s insurance. And life insurance. I’ll need to set up an IV containing fluids wherever you intend to put him. He will require help with replacing the blood he’s lost and stabilizing his blood pressure.”

“I have a couple of guest rooms we can use.”

They didn’t say much else until Levi began to stir. He was in such poor condition that his return to consciousness wasn’t obvious. Only a slight change in his breathing and a couple of very small movements gave him away.

“Human form,” Grisha reminded Erwin quietly, getting up to move the tray.

When Erwin lay his hand over Levi’s sharp withers, the muscles rippling uncomfortably beneath his palm informed him that the drake was at least aware that he was being touched. Perhaps he was also conscious enough to hear him. “Levi, it’s Erwin. Can you understand me?” The way his body tensed said yes, he did understand. And as soon as the muscles tightened he began to shiver. “I need you to take your human form.”

Erwin hadn’t really been expecting him to comply without a great deal of fuss being raised about it, but the shivering concerned him. That symptom was new. “Doctor, Levi is shaking.”

“An effect of the sedative,” Grisha explained briefly. “Lying still for that long causes the temperature to drop. He’s just cold, but we need to move him inside before it worsens.”

“Did you hear that?” Erwin asked. “You’re lying on my front lawn and you may freeze to death unless the brown bears find you first.”

No response.

“I can take you someplace warm,” the detective promised. “But I can’t move you at this size and you aren’t safe out here. We really do have brown bears.”

No response.

“Levi, it’s been several hours since you landed. In that time you’ve been fully unconscious. I’ve had plenty of opportunities to hurt you and in that time I chose to save your life instead. We’ve gone to great lengths to do so. The only ones present now are the ones who want to see you live.”

No response.

“I understand why you may feel safer in this shape, but that feeling is deluding you. Right now you’re defenseless no matter what size you are and I think you’re intelligent enough to realize that. Let me ensure that you are truly safe.”

For a long time, nothing happened. Erwin was still fishing around in his head looking for something else to add when Levi finally shuddered, his body shrinking. The dragon gave way, collapsing into the small, delicate shape of a human.

“Let me look at his incision,” Grisha said quietly, trying not to alarm Levi with reminders of his presence. The dragon lay curled on his side, his knees drawn up protectively against his abdomen.

“Inside,” Erwin promised. “He needs to see that I meant what I said about warmth and safety. Levi, I’m going to have to touch you to carry you in. Know that it isn’t intended as a threat.” When Levi didn’t move, he asked, “Do you understand?”

A brief pause, then Levi nodded. It was only a slight gesture, but Erwin caught it, taking a slow breath and bending to push his arms carefully beneath the dragon. He was heavier than Erwin had anticipated--something he should have remembered from the stable when Levi’s weight had pinned him to the inside of the stall. Still, his size was misleading and it surprised Erwin to find him so solid. He wasn’t unmanageable, though, and Erwin was able to stand without difficulty.

“I’m going to get the IV,” Grisha let Erwin know, following them up onto the porch only to withdraw again as soon as he’d opened the door for the detective. “Go ahead and get him settled.”

Levi twisted uncomfortably in Erwin’s arms, but it wasn’t so much to escape as to try and conceal that vulnerable incision. He may not have realized what exactly it was, what Grisha had done, but he could clearly feel it. He knew there was an injury there and he knew that it was serious enough to protect, trying to turn in Erwin’s grip to tuck that weakness against something which, in that instance, happened to be Erwin’s chest. The detective made no reprimands, knowing the attempt for what it was. He simply paused on the stairs and waited until it was safe to walk again.

Erwin figured it was best to keep Levi within easy hearing range and settled upon the room that was almost directly across the hall from his. He left the dragon at the foot of the bed so that he could reach up and pull the sheets free, trying to work quickly so they could get that shivering under control. Levi cracked his eyes open and was blearily examining the room as best as he could from that angle, obviously confused about where he found himself. He was still feeling the effects of the sedative in his system, but Erwin didn't think that was it. Had Levi ever been inside of a real house, he wondered, or had all of his experiences with indoor life been the stable and the arena?

"This is where I live," Erwin explained. Levi closed his eyes quickly like he hadn't just been trying to study his surroundings. "And I live alone, so once Grisha leaves, no one else will bother you here. I'm going to move you one more time and then I'm done."

Levi huffed irritably, but when Erwin lifted him for the second time there were no more protests than there had already been. Levi's knees came up immediately to cover his abdomen, but before Erwin had a chance to draw the sheets over him as well, Grisha was clearing his throat from the doorway.

"I need to look at the incision."

Levi's eyes snapped open. Erwin could feel him go rigid through the mattress and he looked down to find him glowering heatedly at the vet, looking like he was about to try and sit up. "Careful," Erwin warned him. "We just glued you back together a couple minutes ago and nobody wants to see any more organs tonight." When the dragon did not relent, though, Erwin turned his attention back to Grisha. "Is it something I can check myself?"

"You can," the vet agreed. "Just make sure the seal still feels tight. It should be stuck directly to his skin without peeling up anywhere or chipping off. You can go by feel so he won't even need to move his legs."

"Did you hear all that, Levi?" Erwin asked him. "Grisha will stay right where he is and I'm going to make sure you don't pop open in your sleep. That should give you some peace of mind." The detective turned, pulling his knee up onto the bed so he could lean over and slide his hand very carefully between Levi's knees and his stomach. The dragon scowled, but he barely took his eyes off of Grisha as Erwin found the top of his incision and began running his fingers lightly down the seam. He was slow and careful, methodically checking each edge to ensure it was holding. By the time Erwin announced that he hadn't found anything to worry about, Levi was squirming uncomfortably under his hands, but overall the examination concluded peacefully.

"Yeah, I know," the detective assured him. "You're being a decent patient, though. Thank you for cooperating. The glue feels like it's staying put."

Grisha nodded from the doorway. "I don't know how much you heard earlier," he told Levi. "But I must stress how important it is that you stay in this form for as long as possible. If you keep forcing the glue to expand and contract when your body changes sizes, it will eventually weaken and you will rupture your incision."

"Meaning that you will take longer to heal," Erwin added. "And I'll have to touch you some more so I can glue you back together." He reached down for the sheets and began pulling them up over Levi, but the drake caught them himself and dragged them all the way up to just below his eyes. He looked like he would prefer to be completely covered, but he was too busy glowering threateningly at his veterinarian to close his eyes or let himself be settled. Noticing this, Grisha took a step back.

"I'll be down the hall," he stated, though he paused before he left. "If you have anymore blankets go ahead and add them to what he has. It's difficult to overheat a dragon but it's easy to freeze one. They feel the most secure when they're burrowed into a mound, so add any pillows you can spare as well."

Erwin did notice that Levi had pushed the top of his head _under_ his pillow rather than laying on top of it, so he reached across for the other one and tucked it against Levi's back. "I keep a few more in the hall closet," he told the dragon. "I'll get those as well."

Out in the hall, he waved Grisha over to the linen closet. "The IV?" He asked him, his voice low.

"He'll be out again quickly," Grisha answered. "We can do it then. Don't be surprised if it's several days before he's conscious again. A healing dragon will enter a shallow coma when it deems itself safe enough to do so. It's a deep, recuperative sleep and it will speed Levi's healing time exponentially. No, I better not," he shook his head when Erwin offered him a stack of blankets to hold. "He won't like smelling me on them. It's best to make several trips."

"I didn't think of that. Is there a manual for living with dragons?" He was only partially joking.

But Grisha regarded him seriously through the lenses of his glasses. "Do you intend to keep him long enough to need a manual?"

"I already need a manual," Erwin sighed. "But in the long run I suppose not. Once I have his testimony he will need to be moved to one of the precincts where the others are being held."

"Not before then?"

Erwin shook his head. "He won't respond well to being locked up again. Doing so will destroy any rapport that we've managed to build and he'll shut down. He won't give me anything."

Grisha reached out to take Erwin by the shoulder before he could take too many steps away. "You have your own safety to consider here as well. Is it really advisable for you to house Levi yourself?"

"Nothing about our interactions has ever been advisable," Erwin answered. "But this is the best I can do. I'm only hoping that his interest in courting me will offer some protection."

"It will," Grisha agreed. "But if he decides he is no longer interested, which can happen at any time, then he could make that decision violently."

"I'll have to risk that." Erwin stepped away and that time Grisha let him go, his hand falling to his side. "This is the only thing I can see working out."

Levi was still awake when Erwin stepped into the room, his eyes cracking open to peer at him suspiciously like he had been expecting Dr. Jaeger to try and sneak in. He didn't look like he had much left in him, though. The expression in his eyes was distant and hazy with pain. "There are pillows as well, but I have to go back for those." Erwin left the blankets folded at the foot of the bed and moved to step out again. "I'll leave you to sleep in just a minute."

"Is there anything we can give him for the pain?” He asked Grisha once he was back in the hall. “I think he's hurting."

"He is. I have a single dose of morphine to get him started, but once he's out it won't bother him much." Grisha pulled a syringe from his back pocket. "That will also help with the remaining anxiety that's preventing him from entering the coma. If he lets you, get that into a muscle. His bicep would be easiest with the way he's positioned."

Erwin nodded and tucked the dose into his own back pocket, reaching up to pull his two extra pillows down from the top of the closet. "I’ll offer, but he can choose for himself if he wants it." They were working on trust--something that Levi wouldn't give him if he went around poking him with needles any time he felt like it.

The dragon looked at him blearily as he entered the room.

"I have something that will take the edge off your pain," Erwin told him, setting the pillows down at the end of the bed with the blankets and pulling the syringe from his back pocket so he could sit. "This is morphine," he explained, holding the drug where Levi could see it. "It's a strong painkiller and it will help you sleep, but I'm not giving it to you unless you tell me to. Do you want it?"

Levi hesitated, his eyes on the syringe.

"I'll have to inject it into your shoulder. It will sting briefly, but I've had morphine for some pretty serious injuries and I can say from experience that it does work."

Levi nodded slowly.

"Okay. I'm going to need your arm. Just the top part."

The dragon pulled the sheets down himself, exposing his bony shoulder for Erwin. It was so completely different from the last time Erwin stuck him with a needle that it was almost laughable. This time he barely flinched as the medicine was delivered, clearly beyond that tiny prick, and he pulled the covers back up over his nose, simply looking to the detective for his next move. Erwin tucked one of the pillows against Levi's front, watching him to curl defensively into the feather down as though it were armor. It was almost the last conscious thing he did. He barely reacted when Erwin lay the last pillow across the first two, covering his abdomen from the top as well. By the time the blankets had been added, Levi was out cold.

"It’s working," Erwin told the vet quietly. Still, they waited several more minutes just to be sure.

"I will need to take a blood sample if you intend to keep Levi here," Grisha told him, wheeling the IV stand into the room and moving to set it up. "The DCA requires it of all dragons kept in a domestic setting. Whether they are actually domesticated or not," he added drily.

"The DCA?" Erwin asked. That was the Dragon Conservation Agency. The name was misleading in a sense. They did handle "conservation" efforts such as breeding programs and funding for rehabilitation and adoption, but under their umbrella fell a number of regulatory bodies that they were primarily known for. Essentially, they were the federal dragon police. "They need blood even if I don't plan to keep Levi permanently?"

"He will still need to be registered, even if it's temporary. Any longer than a week will put you in violation and your court case could be threatened. If the defense finds out you kept Levi off-record your veracity will be questioned. It's best to go through all the legalities. You will have to give me your signed consent before I file the papers, though. Technically he's yours."

"This isn't legal ownership," Erwin told the vet firmly. "It's protective custody."

"I'm sorry, but officially it _is_ legal ownership. You will have to take him if he's to stay with you. The DCA doesn't have any other legal designation, so if you do not claim him he will be considered a stray and they will take him themselves. There is no _protective custody."_

Grisha was busy pulling several empty vials and a short line of tubing from his bag, so it gave Erwin a brief moment to think. He'd said more than once that he would never consent to owning a dragon, even in the strictly technical sense that Mike owned Nanaba. He said he would never form any sort of pair bond with a dragon because even on paper it was an idea he could not live with. He'd been so adamant, so certain. He never imagined a time when he wasn't given any real choice in the matter. It was file for legal ownership or lose Levi. And he'd had just about enough of losing Levi.

"What are they using the blood for?" He asked finally.

"Several things," Grisha answered. "Pull his arm out for me. I'm trying to keep my scent off of him." He continued speaking as Erwin moved to help him. "They add it to a database, which they can access when a dragon is stolen or goes missing. Or commits a crime. It also helps to prevent illegal breeding by checking genetic lines against each other. They will identify Levi as illegally bred because he won't match any of the registered breeders they have on file, but you will be able to explain everything when they open their investigation. They will also test Levi for the Marburg virus. It's standard to test every dragon for the MARV-d since it's so lethal to humans and a dragon can carry it without showing symptoms."

“Will you be able to put me into contact with the agent you send Levi’s samples to?” Erwin wanted to know.

“I won’t. It goes to the agency and they sort it out from there, but I assure you that with a case like this one they will be contacting you shortly.” Grisha looked at him intently. “You understand that I’m required by law to report this,” he said. “I could lose my credentials.”

“No, I understand completely,” Erwin assured him, and the doctor turned back to his work, sliding the needle into the crook of Levi’s arm and attaching the first vial. “It needs to be legal. You’re right about my credibility being ruined in court over keeping Levi here off-record. I can’t go to all this trouble only to have the case fall through because I felt squeamish about owning a sentient being. Too many other lives are stake.”

“You’re a very practical man.” Grisha pulled the first vial free and passed it to Erwin, exchanging it for the second. “Poor creature. He’s lost too much as it is.”

It took Erwin a moment to realize that Grisha was referring to the blood.

They only had the one arm available--the other was lost somewhere beneath the sheets and the pillow that Levi was practically fused to. Grisha had to set the IV into the back of his hand since they’d already used the crook of his arm for the venipuncture. He worked quickly and quietly without speaking a word as he focused on getting the needle where it needed to be.

“You know you will have to put him down,” Grisha said finally, smoothing his thumb over the strip of tape he’d just placed across the back of Levi’s hand. He sounded like he’d been thinking about it for a few minutes, how best to bring it up. “You know not to get too attached.”

“I do,” Erwin said stiffly. “I haven’t forgotten.” And he hadn’t. He’d been feeling it all evening--the cruelty of saving Levi, of nursing him back to health, only to turn right back around and sign off on his euthanasia paperwork. “Do you know of any alternative options for cases like Levi’s?”

“If he’d been cute and docile, maybe,” Grisha answered honestly. “But there is no safe place for a dragon like this one. The only way to guarantee that he won’t hurt anyone is to lock him up or destroy him. It would take a caseworker five seconds to realize that. Erwin. It’s easier if you don’t get attached.”

Erwin listened silently as Grisha showed him how to operate the IV stand and how to change the bags. It didn’t seem terribly difficult.

“It’s been a while,” the detective said finally, helping Grisha gather the things he would be taking with him. “Dorian hasn’t showed up. Does that mean he won’t be coming?”

“I wouldn’t count on it. Dragons aren’t bloodhounds. They use some other sense to track each other, but isn’t clear how. It’s still being researched. In other words, there’s no telling how long it will take Dorian to find you.”

“I’ll have the precinct post someone out front, then,” Erwin decided, following Grisha from the room. “I can’t keep a constant watch, but with the search called off we’ll have the manpower available to help. I imagine it isn’t advisable for me to go into work.”

“I’d have my files delivered here if I were you,” Grisha agreed dryly. “It should be a few days at minimum before Levi’s eyes even open, but I wouldn’t bet my witness on that. He’s surprised us in every other way. On the subject … don’t be alarmed if he doesn’t move because he won’t. Change that IV bag the way I showed you until you run out, then you should be able to take the needle out with no problems. If the needle comes out accidentally, call me. Don’t try to put it back in yourself. If something doesn’t look right with the equipment, call me. If Levi’s status changes and you have questions about it, _call me._ You have my direct number.”

“I can do that.”

Grisha paused at the front door. “If he takes his dragon form and you see him licking the incision, don’t try to stop him. Unlike dogs, dragon’s aren’t idiots. The lining of their throats protects them from the fire they breathe. It has mildly antimicrobial and analgesic properties and they can strip the lining at will to apply to external wounds. It makes a fantastic wound salve. If he’s licking the incision, that’s what he’s doing.”

“I … see.” Erwin wasn’t sure whether he should be disgusted out or impressed with the wonders of evolutionary development. He settled for unplugging Grisha’s spotlights and taking up the cords instead of committing to an opinion. He helped the veterinarian load all of his equipment back into the mobile clinic, gathering the bloody tarp and the one of the doctor’s many medical bags. “Thank you,” he said when they’d finished. “I can’t express how grateful I am.”

“You don’t need to,” the vet replied. “This is what I do for a living. Call me when Levi wakes up. I will want to come by for a follow up visit and see how he’s healing. If you find anything I left I’ll get it from you then.”

All the same, Erwin thanked Grisha again as he climbed up into the truck. He didn’t linger to watch him turn and roll back down the drive, though. The detective had several calls to make--one to Zackley with an update and a request for a posted watch, one to Mike and Nanaba with an update and a request to tell Dorian (if they could find him) that Erwin was not interested in courtship, and one to Hanji with an update and a request for all the reading material they had on the care and keeping of dragons. First, though, he was going to start the coffee pot.

And pull the scotch back down from the top of the cabinet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, show of hands. Who actually expects Levi to be a good patient?
> 
> As an additional note, I referred to Dr. Wikipedia and Dr. Google for a lot of the medical information in this chapter. I have never personally fixed internal bleeding and there are some sections that make me uncomfortable due to the gaping holes in my medical knowledge. If you know whether or not Levi should have been connected to an IV during the surgery itself, please let me know because that is bothering me. You're welcome to correct me and FYI me on this subject or any other. I like learning things, including where I need improvement. =D


	6. Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erwin does some thinking, Levi does some coma. Mike goes to jail and loses all of his money in the same evening.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This thing didn't really fit with the chapter before or after it, so I made it it's own little ... interlude. Seven is still going up sometime over the weekend, though. =D I get Thursday and Friday off of work for Thanksgiving, for which I am appropriately thankful. 
> 
> Ongoing thanks to [Mandoodle](http://harmony385.tumblr.com) for reading my shit at the last minute.

Erwin had phoned Zackley first, knowing it would be his shortest call. Strange as it felt having his boss on speaker while he stripped out of his ruined clothes, the drying blood had glued his shirt to his skin and he was beginning to smell like Jason Voorhees. The half-finished mug of improvised Irish coffee sat on the counter by his phone, which Erwin had turned over to avoid exposing his naked ass to the stern, unblinking gaze of Zackley’s contact photo. They were on and off in the time it took Erwin to decide whether his clothes were going in the hamper or the wastebasket.

His coffee was lukewarm by the time Erwin emerged from the shower, freshly scrubbed and pleasantly heavy with sleep. The caffeine in his system had lost its halfhearted battle against the scotch and a full day’s worth of stress, but he tossed the rest of it back and flipped open a web browser as he stood there brushing his teeth. What was the most important thing he needed to know about the dragon in the next room? Questions clamored for his attention, but none of them presented itself as the most important. Meanwhile, the cursor blinked at him patiently, awaiting his decision.

_dragon do’s and don’ts_ he tried.

_Encountering A Dragon In Public - Do’s and Don’ts_

_Mated Dragons - Do’s and Don’ts_

_The Do’s and Don’ts of Multi-Dragon Households_

_Babies and Dragons - Safety Do’s and Don’ts_

Erwin made it all the way down to the bottom of the first page before he gave up. _What do dragons dislike?_ he asked instead.

_When Personalities Clash - Positively Reinforcing Your Dragon’s Submission_

Erwin let his phone fall onto the counter, trusting the case to keep it safe. He didn’t touch it again until he was finished with the bathroom and even then it was only to dial Mike’s landline, swiping quickly out of the internet.

His partner answered like he was still up and about, his tone weary and defeated as he uttered a low, “Hello?”

“Is something wrong?” Erwin asked him immediately. It had been that kind of day.

_“Yeah,”_ Mike sighed. “Nanaba has hotels on every other property and she won’t let me go to bed until I’ve hemorrhaged all of my money. I keep landing myself in jail and I’m starting to think I’m safest there.”

Erwin felt himself relax minutely. “How did Nanaba convince you to play Monopoly with her?” No one played Monopoly with Nanaba for the same reason that no one went to a South African beach dressed like a seal. It was just a terrible idea.

“It’s … a long story. Anyway, what are you doing up so late?”

Erwin noted the quick subject change, but he let it slide. There were more important things on his mind than teasing Mike about his shockingly adventurous sex life. “Levi landed in my front yard several hours ago,” he began.

“Several _hours?_ What were you doing all that time instead of calling me? Have you taken him into custody? He’s got Levi,” he added for Nanaba’s benefit. “Yeah, I guess he’s alive. Hold on, Erwin, she’s getting the other phone.”

Erwin waited to hear the soft click of another line connecting before he continued. “He was nearly dead when he got here. How he even made it here in his condition, I don’t know. I had to call Grisha and we were doing surgery on my front lawn all night.”

_“Surgery?”_ Nanaba repeated. “For what?”

“Internal bleeding. Grisha cauterized the wounds and Levi is stable, but he’s out cold with a dose of morphine in his system and something Grisha called a recuperative coma.”

“Yeah, the healing sleep,” Nanaba agreed. “He really was on death’s door, then.”

“He was. Grisha didn’t think he would survive the operation.”

“That little drake is a tough son of a bitch,” Mike said, sounding genuinely impressed about it. “And one hell of a flier too. To outmaneuver and then outrun Dorian that way he’s _got_ to be something else. When are you moving him to the precinct?”

Erwin pinched the phone between his shoulder and his cheek as he bent over to step into a pair of boxer shorts, leaving the wet towel draped over his dresser’s top drawer in an uncharacteristic display of apathy. He would get it in the morning. “I’m not moving Levi. I think our best opportunity to get anything out of him is already perfectly set up. From what I understand about how courtship works he won’t be going anywhere. Is that right?”

Mike and Nanaba were silent long enough that Erwin could be certain they were looking at each other, their brows furrowed. He could hear that expression in Nanaba’s voice when she said, “Most likely. I couldn't imagine myself trying to leave Mike when I was courting him. I couldn’t stand feeling like I might miss something important. But … Levi may be more resistant. He’s been resistant to everything else.”

That was for damn sure. “My neighbors don’t have dragons,” Erwin could say with certainty. “And the solitude here is ideal. So long as Levi is unlikely to leave, I think this is the best possible environment for him.”

“There isn’t any way for you to guarantee that he won’t,” Mike argued practically. “You really don’t know what he’s capable of enduring.”

Erwin lowered himself slowly onto the edge of his bed, his aching muscles twinging uncomfortably. “I don’t think it’s about endurance. He’s confined to that bed until he heals whether he can ignore the allure or not. In that time I’ll have a chance to build on our rapport. By comparison, can you imagine him cooperating with us from the inside of a cell?”

“Can you imagine him cooperating with us at _all?”_ Mike retorted. “Keeping a dragon like Levi in your home is one of the most dangerous things you could possibly do right now, especially with Dorian unaccounted for. You know he’ll still be coming, right?”

“I’m expecting him. There’s an officer on their way here to keep watch.”

“And what are they going to do when they spot Dorian? Radio for backup? That dragon might as well be a tank. We would need a rocket launcher to turn him around.”

“That’s part of the reason why I called tonight rather than tomorrow morning,” Erwin admitted. His sheets were chilly when he slid into them and he spared a thought for the socks he should have put on with his underwear, but dismissed the prospect of getting back up. “I thought you may have some ideas about how to move forward. Both of you know Dorian. You know dragons. If I tell him that I’ve agreed to court Levi, Grisha said that he may accept that. Do you agree?”

“Yeah,” Nanaba answered. “He would accept it as his cue to finish Levi off so he can show you that he’s hot shit. Mike has the right idea. You’re both safer if you move Levi to the precinct. Knowing that he’s dealing with human authorities is the only thing I can see stopping Dorian.”

“You’ve also seen the way Levi is,” Erwin told them. “Locking him up was never the best option. He’ll resent us too much to give us anything we want to know.”

They were both quiet for a long time on the other end of the line, thinking.

“Keeping him in your house can’t be the best option, either.” But Nanaba didn’t have any immediate ideas to put forward or she wouldn’t have sounded so resigned. “Does he even know what a house _is?”_

“By the end of the night I was able to talk Levi into his human form and he allowed me to carry him up the stairs. He consented on his own to the morphine. I think the part of him that believes it’s safest to kill me is being overruled.”

“And what about Dorian?” Mike persisted.

“I’ll do what I have to do. You may lose a tenant.”

“And I may lose a best friend.”

“The smell of Levi’s blood should still be all over my lawn. I could tell him that he was gravely injured and we had to put him down. If he wants to investigate that for himself he will have to enter my house and only his human form will fit through the door. The hunting rifle would work then if I need it.”

“That … may work,” Nanaba said slowly. “He would hesitate to target your entire house because as a candidate himself he wouldn’t want to incur your hatred. That may work.” She sounded a little more certain on the second repetition. “It’s still a piss-poor idea, but I’ve expressed that already.”

“Nevertheless, your concern is heartwarming,” Erwin assured her. “I’ll let you both go. I just wanted to update you.”

“There’s one other thing,” Nanaba said quickly, trying to catch them all before they got too far along with their goodnights. “You need to be careful not to stretch your timeline on this. Get that information from Levi as quick as you can because he will be watching you and he will eventually decide how he wants to proceed.”

“Grisha said something similar,” Erwin told her. “He warned me that if Levi decides he doesn’t want to pursue me he could make the decision violently. His words, not mine.”

“What he said was true,” Nanaba agreed. “But you have the alternative to worry about as well. If Levi moves past the allure and starts developing real feelings for you then things could get truly ugly when he finds out you’ve only been interested in the information he has. We’re a prideful species in general and he’s unlikely to tolerate the humiliation. My point is, don’t mess around. Get what you need and cut him loose as soon as you can. Dorian was right when he said that you are very attractive to us, but that doesn’t make Levi’s interest in you frivolous. Toying with him could get you killed.”

“That’s a good point,” Mike murmured. “I haven’t been thinking of this thing as a real courtship because the situation is so ridiculous, but for Levi it is real. And in a way it’s still an honor to be chosen, even if the dragon who chose you is pretty messed up.”

“I will try to catch it before it develops any farther,” Erwin promised them. “We can’t afford for things to get any more complicated than they are.”

Mike made a small, vague affirmative. “We won’t keep you. Go and get some sleep.”

“Unless you want to come play Monopoly with us,” Nanaba cackled gleefully. “Mike could use some extra help.”

“No thanks. It sounds as though it would be over by the time I get there. Night, all.”

Erwin rolled over to set the phone on its charger, turning the ring volume up a little higher and cancelling the alarm he had set for the next morning. He supposed he was taking a few days off. When he lay back, he found that his house was as quiet as it had ever been, only there was an unsettled feel to it that wasn’t dissimilar from the niggling concern that the oven had been left on or the door unlocked. Having a half-wild fighting ring champion sleeping in the room across the hall would do that to a psyche, though. He told himself it was healthy and closed his eyes.

The detective’s dreams spun restlessly.

When his ringtone woke him at the crack of dawn, Erwin didn’t feel like he’d slept at all. He must have, though, because torn strips of dreams were still floating around in his head as he reached over to retrieve his phone. 4:45. The windows were still dark, an unpleasant early-morning chill hanging over the house.

“What is it?”

“We found Dorian,” Nanaba breathed into the phone. She sounded as though she’d been running. Or floored. “His body was just found. Christ, Erwin, Levi didn’t outrun him, he killed him. They’re saying he’s all torn up like he went through a dull meat grinder.”

Erwin was groggy and in pain, his head splitting with sleep deprivation and his muscles stiff from the previous day. It made him a little slow to reply. “We don’t need to worry, then.”

“What the hell do you mean _we don’t need to worry?”_ Nanaba snapped. “The way he went apeshit wild on Dorian doesn’t concern you at all? Levi is fucked up. He’s psychologically unstable and that means, courtship or not, that you are putting yourself at serious risk playing house with him like this. You need to get sleeping beauty to the precinct while you can, while he’s still _sleeping.”_

“Dorian doesn't change anything," Erwin answered reasonably, though the surprise was just beginning to hit him. He lay his head back on the pillow and forced it to roll over him, the size of that dragon. "Levi had already shown us those tendencies when he killed Lucille and the others."

"It changes my understanding of what he's capable of," Nanaba insisted. "He's impossible. There's no _containing_ something like that. You remember how enormous Dorian was. And Levi didn't go into that fight at his best. Erwin, he _shredded_ Dorian. If we reported this to the DCA the way we should do, they wouldn't wait for Levi's testimony. They would almost be obligated to put him down."

“Levi’s records from the fighting ring didn’t simply indicate that he was unbeaten,” Erwin told her quietly. “They showed that he was unbeaten by a wide margin. Something like that is bound to unhinge a dragon.”

“Yeah, sure, and that’s very sad, but it doesn’t change the fact that he’s dangerous. What do you want me to do? If you ask me not to then I won’t report it, but honestly I think that enough is enough. You’re getting in too deep.”

“I can’t ask you to keep this secret for me,” Erwin answered immediately. "I realize how much trouble you would both be in if someone found out it was Levi who killed all those dragons and that you knew. I would understand if you have to tell someone. I wouldn't blame you."

Nanaba cursed. Not at Erwin, but at the situation as a whole. Somewhere in the background he could hear Mike saying something to her, his cadence light with humor but his words unintelligible.

“Yeah, and fuck you too. Of course he left it up to us.” A pause. “Stop it, I’m going to come over there.”

“Do you think that humans are safer from Levi?” Erwin asked Nanaba, trying to interject before they got into one of their strange, pseudo-heated debates where no one was really angry but they had makeup sex anyway. “We can infer from what we’ve seen that Levi is most likely to try and kill other dragons on sight, but he doesn’t seem quite as quick to make that determination with humans.”

“I honestly don’t know,” Nanaba sighed. “The dragons we’ve taken from the ring were all scared shitless, but none of them were ever fighters, either. They were more subdued than defensive, but you can’t use their behavior to predict Levi’s. He’s a completely different dragon. On top of that, he isn’t fresh out of the egg so he has experience that the younglings don’t have. That experience could make him different in any number of ways.”

“I’ll see about getting a tranq gun from the department while Levi is still asleep. Right now the only options I have for slowing him down are a small range of firearms and a cast iron skillet.”

“The skillet could double as a shield,” Nanaba quipped half-heartedly. “Alright, I need to go. Levi’s made a real mess up here and we still have the younglings to place into foster care on top of that. Their bloodwork came back clean.”

“That’s good to hear. Thank you for letting me know about Dorian.”

When he hung up, though, Erwin did not immediately go back to sleep despite the heaviness that still clung to his limbs. After all that talk about Levi, he felt compelled to go and look in on him--to make sure he was still breathing or something to that effect. He guessed he hadn’t quite gotten over the habits he’d developed over the course of the previous night, checking Levi’s vitals to ensure they weren’t crashing. Erwin snagged his bathrobe from the inside of the bathroom door and pulled it over his shoulders as he went, trying to knock some of the chill from his bare skin.

Levi hadn’t moved an inch. He looked the exact same as he had hours before when Erwin had watched his eyes close--something that Grisha had warned him about. Still, he pulled the sheets down past the dragon’s neck and lay his fingers across his pale jugular, feeling a stronger heartbeat there than the one he remembered. Reassured, the detective moved to cover the drake’s head again, but he paused before he pulled fully away. Just beside Erwin’s fingers there was a long, ragged pair of scars, silver with age and bunched in places where the skin had not broken cleanly. They looked like teeth marks, like another dragon had once gotten a grip on Levi and tried tearing out his jugular. A few inches to the side and it might have worked. The marks felt sunken beneath his fingertips where Erwin touched them, the skin moving strangely like it was thinner and looser there. He’d lost a little of the muscle beneath.

The drake didn’t look unhinged just then, his face slack and expressionless in a way that indicated something deeper than sleep. It looked a lot like death in that everything seemed to be gone. He wasn’t dreaming, he wasn’t tense. He was simply empty. Erwin hoped he remembered something of the way it felt when he woke up because there was no doubt in Erwin’s mind that this was the most peace that Levi had ever known.

It was easier to see without the dragon’s eyes on him--without having to be ready for the next move Levi made--that he was a witness because he had first been a victim. Erwin had known it intellectually because it was obvious that Levi was no different from the others they’d found, but he hadn’t had a chance to think about it. Levi didn’t strike him as a victim. It just wasn’t in his nature to be victimized. After making his escape and then killing Lucille and the others, now Dorian, he’d always come off as the aggressor, the instigator, the perpetrator, even. He’d been someone Erwin needed and someone Erwin needed to stop. But someone had put him in a stall like all the others.

The detective drew the sheets back over the drake’s head, resolving not to forget. He’d be kind when he could.


	7. Day 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Levi sleeps, Levi wakes up--unfortunately it's on the wrong side of the bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Continual thanks to [Mandiggle](http://harmony283.tumblr.com) for the beta read. =D

Levi slept for nine solid days. He didn’t move so much as a single finger in all that time, still curled around his pillow with the front of his face pressed lightly into the fabric. His hand remained precisely where Erwin left it, easily accessible atop the dark blue pillowcase.

He was something of a marvel that Erwin hadn’t been given the time to contemplate, much less ask anyone about. If he’d noticed that Levi looked a little different from other dragons he’d seen, the realization had been subconsciously filed away before he knew it needed addressing. It wasn’t Levi’s stature--that difference was readily apparent. It was his coloration.

The drake’s fingers were almost black at the tips. They felt like flesh to the touch but they matched the color of his scales, his nails harder than a human's and black as onyx. The color faded in a perfect gradient like the scales on his belly, transitioning naturally into the expected flesh tones. His toes had been that way too, Erwin recalled, and the tips of his ears. The shadows around his eyes hinted at something more permanent than exhaustion and Erwin hadn't caught a good look at the dragon's spine, but he thought the vertebra may have been darker there as well. It was strange. He'd never seen a dragon look anything apart from completely human. Aside from the elliptical pupils that followed every one of them into their human forms they could have been mistaken for human themselves. No one had mentioned it, but there had been a lot going on. Surely Grisha would have said something if Levi's unusual pigmentation had been a symptom of illness?

_did you notice that levi’s fingers and toes are black?_ Erwin asked Hanji anyway.

_I did notice his hands! His gradation is lovely._

_so he isn’t sick?_ God only knew what sort of illnesses that stable had been incubating. It would not have shocked Erwin in the slightest to find something in there that turned the extremities black.

_No, of course not. Those are carryover traits. Sometimes dragon-form traits will follow a dragon into their human form. The extent and location of these traits can vary._

_oh, i hadn’t seen them before._

_They aren’t a common sight thanks to today’s standardized breeding practices. =/_

Erwin had no idea how to politely ask about that.

The last IV bag ran dry on day two, so Erwin was able to carefully remove the needle and hide the metal stand in his hall closet before Levi woke up. It was a relief in that sense, knowing there would be one less reason for the drake to panic. There was no way of knowing how he would react to finding himself in Erwin’s guest bedroom--if he even remembered being moved there. The detective picked up Levi’s hand and dabbed the blood away, tucking the chilly limb back into the warm nest of blankets. He’d done his best to keep the chill off of Levi’s skin, pulling one of the blankets up over the pillow where his hand had rested, but one layer of fabric hadn’t done much to counter his heat loss.

Concerned that the drake wasn’t staying warm enough, Erwin reached into the mound to touch Levi’s shoulder blade, but it seemed alright. It was just the arm then. It was a little disconcerting to realize that Levi had been so cold without being aware enough of it to pull his arm closer to his body. Even in sleep that was something that most people did. Some part of the brain knew what it needed and how to react without needing to let the consciousness know. Erwin understood then what everyone had meant when they said the coma was a last resort and could only happen when a dragon felt safe. Right then, Levi was as helpless as a newborn. Worse.

Had it been desperation or trust?

On day three, Erwin called Grisha to ask about moving Levi. “Isn’t it unsafe to lay in one position for that long?” he asked the vet. “Can he get nerve damage?”

“No, leave him the way he is,” Grisha answered. “Dragons have adapted over thousands of years to enter the coma safely. His body knows how to compensate.”

On day four, Erwin resigned himself to a long wait and made a trip into the city for his case files. He didn’t feel right asking someone to deliver them, though he regretted that decision almost as soon as he turned out of the driveway. He’d actually flipped his sirens on for the return trip, fearing that Levi would wake up to an empty house.

Day nine featured another early-morning call to Grisha. He’d gone to check on Levi only to find that nothing appeared to be changing and it occurred to Erwin to wonder if the veterinarian had given him an antibiotic while they were working on Levi. So much had happened that night and so many things had been injected into Levi’s body without much explanation that Erwin woke up on the morning of day nine concerned about gangrene or blood poisoning or something to that effect. “Should I look at the incision?” Erwin asked doubtfully. “He isn’t waking up.”

“It has been longer than I’m accustomed to seeing a healing coma last,” Grisha told him. “Normally they max out at four to six days, but I also haven’t seen a dragon in such dire condition. He was badly malnourished and completely exhausted _before_ he fought with Dorian. Speaking of Dorian, have you encountered him yet?”

“I don’t know what became of Dorian,” Erwin lied. “Nanaba says he might have expressed an interest in courtship to upset Levi.”

“Rather than legitimately being interested in you?” Grisha asked. “Most likely. That’s the only reason he wouldn’t have come after you by now. It’s certainly been long enough for him to find you.”

_Well,_ Erwin thought, _it wasn’t the only reason._

“In any event, I’m not entirely surprised it’s taking Levi more time to come out of it. As long as he doesn’t feel feverish I wouldn’t worry about infection. If he’s still asleep tomorrow, though, I’ll swing by on my way to the clinic just to have a look.”

“I appreciate it. I’d feel better having a vet check him.” Erwin nudged the covers aside, though, to place a hand over Levi’s forehead. He felt dry to the touch, no perspiration, though he was very warm. “What is a dragon’s normal body temperature?” Erwin asked.

“In their human forms it should be around 102,” Grisha replied. “But in the coma his temperature will be lower. I’ve seen it fall as far as 100, though if it get’s below that he’s approaching hypothermia and you’ll need to warm him back up.”

“Oh. He’s probably where he needs to be, then. I was thinking he had a fever. I’ll get the thermometer, though. Do you mind staying on the line for a moment in case he’s out of the safe temperature range?”

“I don’t mind at all. Let me put you on speaker, though. I’m taking stock of my supply cabinets.” There was a brief pause and then. “Can you hear me okay?”

“Yes, perfectly. Where do I put this?” Erwin asked, looking doubtfully at the digital thermometer that Grisha had left for him on the side table. “I don’t have to …”

“No, you won’t need a rectal reading in his human form,” Grisha chuckled. “His mouth or underarm would be just fine.”

Erwin sighed with relief. Levi’s mouth was probably easier to get to, he figured. The thermometer slid easily past the dragon’s front teeth and Erwin angled it down, fairly certain that he had it resting against the underside of Levi’s tongue. He hit the button to start the reading, noting that Levi’s breathing seemed a little quicker that morning. Erwin could feel the breaths puffing softly against the side of his hand, smaller, shorter exhales than he was accustomed to. He opened his mouth to ask about it when the thermometer went off, beeping shrilly to announce that it had its reading.

“101.8,” Erwin told him. “He’s almost up to the normal waking temperature.”

“Unless he has a small fever, he’ll probably come to either today or tomorrow,” Grisha said. “If he isn’t up by this evening, let me know and I’ll bring a stronger antibiotic with me when I come to check in.”

The detective’s response was delayed because he was busy watching the dragon’s eyes move behind his lids, twitching from one side to the other like a person in REM sleep. “I think you’re right about it being today,” he said quietly. “His eyes are moving again.”

Grisha made a soft, satisfied sound. “He’s coming out of it, then. Get off the phone with me and pull up a chair so you can tell him where he is when he wakes up. He may not remember much from the other night.”

“Are you still coming by tomorrow?” Erwin asked.

“Only if he doesn’t wake up. It’s unlikely, but he may slide back into it. Otherwise I’ll have to schedule something. The post-op checkup will take a little longer and I have a couple of breeders with gravid females who are due for delivery this week. Post-op generally something we wait a couple of weeks to do anyway.”

“I’ll let you know, then,” Erwin answered. “Thank you.”

Levi’s eyes snapped open as soon as Erwin shifted his weight to get up, but enough of him was still seated on the edge of the mattress that he could feel Levi tensing. “You’re safe, Levi, but please don’t move quickly. Your injuries were very severe.”

The drake froze, but continued staring in a wide-eyed, unblinking way that made him look a little demonic with those elliptical pupils fixated so intently on Erwin. “I was just in here checking your temperature to see if you had a fever. You’ve been out for nine days.”

Finally, the dragon’s attention shifted, his eyes jumping in alarm to the thermometer resting on Erwin’s knee. Correctly guessing the cause for concern, Erwin added, “I didn’t put it in your rectum.” When the dragon released a small, relieved breath, he had to laugh in spite of Levi’s darkening expression. “I’m sorry, it’s just that I reacted the same way when Grisha said I could check you by mouth. It goes under your tongue when you’re in your human form.” Levi was remarkably readable as a human, his changes in expression slight, but discernible. Erwin had been watching people’s faces for long enough to catch the small thoughts as they came and went. The knowledge was something of a comfort. “Grisha said you may not remember much of what happened. Do you remember him being here?”

Levi frowned like he was thinking about it, but he didn’t answer.

“I called him after you landed on my lawn because I knew there wasn’t much I could do on my own.” Levi seemed to be listening to the story, so Erwin continued. “Grisha was able to determine that you were bleeding on the inside and so to fix you he had to be able to get to the injury. You need to be careful with your abdomen.”

He purposefully didn’t mention it overtly that Levi had been cut open, but the dragon seemed to draw that conclusion on his own. His gray eyes went wide as he scrambled to look at himself, sweeping his pillow onto the floor and yanking the sheets down in his urgency to expose the long incision.  It still looked raw and irritated, but the glue was holding and he seemed to be healing. To Levi’s eyes, though, it had to look terrible, and when he glowered up at Erwin his expression was so accusing that it stopped the detective as his mouth was opening. There was too much horror in his face. Erwin realized that Levi was going to bolt approximately half a second before the dragon moved, shooting upright and actually managing to grab the pillow blocking his other side before the pain hit him and he went straight back down again with a soft, “Mmph.” He didn’t make any sound apart from that one, his shoulder hitting the mattress and his knees coming straight up to his chest as he grabbed himself around the abdomen and held on like he was trying to keep his incision together. His eyelids were pinched hard, all the color washing out of his face as he rode it out.

“Did you rupture the adhesive?” Erwin asked him. “Let me see if you’re bleeding.”

But the drake’s eyes flew open again at the suggestion and he lashed out, swiping at Erwin with his dark fingernails when the detective tried to sit back down. Levi drew in a sharp breath, going rigid as the movement jostled his injury, but he did not close his eyes again, squinting furiously at the blonde through his watery vision like he was daring him to come any closer.

“Okay,” Erwin took a placating step back, but he did not give up his mission. “Check yourself, then. This is serious. You could bleed to death.”

Levi snarled in frustration, but he pulled his knees back just a little to look down at himself, thrusting his clean hand out for Erwin to see that there was no blood.

“Good,” the detective sighed. “We didn’t go and mutilate you for the hell of it, Levi. Most people aren’t psychopaths, myself included, so looking at your organs was not my idea of a perfect evening. Grisha did what he had to do to save your life.” Erwin took another step back before he turned. “I’m going to get you a glass of water while you continue to lay there and think about the importance of not rupturing your incision. If you have to use the toilet I would prefer it if you called me, but I know you won't do that so I’m going to bring something in here for you to hold onto when you get up.”

Giving Levi a couple of minutes without having to worry about Erwin’s immediate presence would probably help him to realize for himself that there was no threat here--just a guy in his sweatpants bringing an injured person a glass of water.

_he’s awake,_ Erwin messaged Grisha, _can i give him some hydrocodone?_

_Where did you get hydrocodone?_

_i was shot last year_

_Oh, I see. Police officers. How many mg?_

_i’ll need to look_

Erwin filled a glass for Levi, opting for one of the plastic outdoor cups he used for barbeques over the actual glass ones on the lower shelf. God only knew what sort of wild flailing he could expect from the irritable drake. Once Erwin was back upstairs, though, he went first to the hall closet for the IV equipment, disconnecting some of the more alarming bits and leaving him with the stand itself. That, he rolled into Levi’s room.

“I’m leaving this at your bedside for bathroom trips,” Erwin explained, approaching the bed slowly and parking the metal stand as close to the mattress as it would go. He left the glass of water there on the table by the thermometer. “When you get up, it helps to roll sideways. Don’t use any of the muscles in your abdomen. I’m talking to Grisha now about what to give you for the pain, so I’ll be back in a minute with something.”

Erwin kept medicines in one of his bathroom drawers, so he sat himself down on the floor and sifted through a box of Advil, Tylenol, something for nausea, Aspirin, more than one cream for insect bites, a basic first aid kit, a bottle of peroxide, and so on before he found the prescription bottle at the back of the collection. He didn’t flush anything like that into the sewer system and besides, one never knew when they might need some leftover hydrocodone. Case in point.

_it says its 30 mg/300 mg_

_So it’s essentially Vicodin. Do you have any acetaminophen?_

Erwin looked back into the drawer, knowing that something in there had to be the right thing.

_i have tylenol_

_Rx or OTC?_

_otc_

_Cut one of those in half and give it to him with one hydrocodone pill. The FDA mandates that hydrocodone be paired with 325 mg of acetaminophen, not 300 mg. I don’t prescribe Vicodin for that reason. Half a Tylenol is well over 325, but he will be fine if you dose him at the upper range of the 4-6 hour schedule._

_thank you_

_You’re welcome. Try to cut him back to just the OTC medications as soon as you can._

_okay_

Erwin split the Tylenol with the blade of his hair shears, setting the other half aside for later and taking one each of the Tylenol and hydrocodone back into Levi’s room.

“Go ahead and swallow these now if you want them,” Erwin told the dragon. “I need to know when you take them so I can time it.” He set them down by the glass of water and stepped back, looking at Levi as the dragon gazed stubbornly back at him and did not move. “I’m standing here for about thirty more seconds and then I’m leaving. The pills will have to come with me. I’m not going to overdose you because you waited five hours to take them.”

Erwin turned his wrist to look at his watch and Levi continued to stare at him, waiting to see if he was bluffing. He didn’t move when Erwin announced, “Ten seconds,” then “Five seconds.” He did move when Erwin moved, reaching over and snatching the medications from the bedside table before the detective could take them. He sat up slowly, which Erwin could forgive, but when he also took his time inspecting the pills like he had never seen one before in his life, Erwin was pretty sure that he was intentionally being difficult. It was only the slight chance that Levi really hadn’t ever taken an oral medication before that kept Erwin’s lips closed. “Put them in your mouth and use the water to help swallow them,” he explained, standing there and waiting through the whole agonizing process of watching Levi place the hydrocodone into his mouth and then swish it around like he was actually trying to taste it before he finally swallowed with a wrinkled nose.

“They aren’t made to taste good,” Erwin said dryly. “That’s generally why people elect to swallow them _quickly.”_

Levi took even more time with the Tylenol.

He did drain the water, though--something that Erwin was pleased to see. At least dehydration would not be one of their ongoing battles.

“I realize that following directions is not one of your strong suits,” Erwin told him. “But you do need to stay in that form until Dr. Jaeger tells you that it’s safe to move back and forth between them. That’s for your own safety, not for my convenience. Do you need to use the toilet while you’re up?”

Levi laid back down.

“It’s the round, white thing right in there.” Erwin pointed to the room in question and looked at his watch. “I’ll be back in six hours with another dose. Shout if you need anything. Or bang on the wall.” He paused in the doorway, though. “If you hear noise outside, don’t worry about it. I’m expecting Mike to come and deliver a couple of things later this morning. One of those things includes your dinner, so don’t try to kill him.”

Levi snorted, but he didn’t seem immediately interested in killing anyone. Or eating. He just dragged his nest back around him and tucked one of the pillows against his incision like he planned to be there for a while. Erwin had no idea where he was keeping all that water. Perhaps it was going towards blood production.

It was still fairly early in the morning--too early to expect Mike for some time yet. His shift started at eight and he would swing by before than with the manuals and tranq gun that Erwin had asked for. Nanaba had also included a cooler full of animal viscera for Levi. He’d been assured that the raw, high quality meat would sit best on the drake’s stomach until Erwin could start transitioning him to a more balanced diet. For a starving and injured dragon, though, raw would be the easiest for his system to process. They’d found the feed room at the stable and were able to ascertain what the dragon’s diets had consisted of--frozen meat packed with steroids and a low-grade antibiotic. They hadn’t found any vegetables or fruit--something that Hanji said was a serious dietary oversight. Despite all appearances to the contrary, dragons were not obligate carnivores. They were partially omnivorous, requiring some vegetation in their diets in addition to fruits and nuts. Erwin had plenty of those things lying around, but he was short on the beef heart and chicken liver.

Rather than go back to bed, Erwin carried his tablet down to the den and set himself up with a cup of coffee by the cold fireplace. Sometimes in the winter he cheated a little, using the space heater on the floor by his chair rather than the fireplace itself. He was happy enough so long as his feet were comfortable. Erwin could not abide cold toes.

The detective checked his work email first, replying to several officers who were still working on the men they'd brought in from the stable. Apparently they hadn't cracked Marty Branch but they'd gotten close enough that he'd lawyered up. It wasn't just any lawyer, either. The man that arrived at the precinct was well known and exorbitantly priced. Erwin recognized the name as soon as he read it. Someone wanted to be very sure that Marty Branch gave them nothing. It meant, of course, that he knew something that was worth over two hundred an hour to protect. The high-end lawyer confirmed it, but he would also be nearly impossible to move. Unless Branch had an unexpected change of heart that door had just been slammed shut in their faces.

The other reports were similarly disheartening. Branch’s stable hands and the client were the opposite, babbling out everything they knew as fast as they could and insisting that there wasn't anything else. Nile had a complete breakdown of the stable's feeding schedule and medical procedures. _What medical procedures was he referring to?_ Erwin had written back. Nile would know not to actually ask, though by the sound of it he already knew enough to set up a stable of his own if he wanted to retire into a life of crime. In any case it sounded like they were about finished with the lower end of the power structure.

The media had been informed of Levi's "capture," another email informed him. Erwin knew that one already because he'd seen the news when it aired. He thanked the sender and moved on.

Zackley wanted more of the details at Erwin's earliest convenience. He let Erwin know that a notice of approval for Erwin to work his case from home had been handed down from the higher-ups. He'd been burning through his modest collection of vacation days like a brush fire, but he'd get some of those back since he was considered on the clock. The appearance of Marty Branch's lawyer must have caused someone to realize that Levi's testimony would be all they were getting from this stage of the investigation. Erwin closed his email and opened a fresh internet browser.

_dragon rehabilitation_

_dragon rehabilitators_

_dragon rehabilitators fighting ring_

_fighting ring survivors_

They had all been taken as younglings. There was one article farther down the page, uncovered by a little keyword tweaking, that read, _Case Worker Killed By Fighting Ring Survivor._ That dragon appeared to have been older, already trained for the ring like Levi was, but she had been put down following the attack. There weren't any others on record as far as the internet went--not without some deeper digging, anyway. Erwin sat back in his chair and swiped the reading glasses from his face, suitably discouraged.

That was about where he was when he heard Mike pull up, his friend's elderly engine clearly audible from inside the house. Mike knew better than to walk in, though, as he normally would have. Erwin realized this and got up to go meet him.

"I’m assuming it isn’t a good idea for you to come in?"

"I value all my body parts well enough not to take you up on that," Mike replied easily. He did walk his cooler up to the front porch, though, leaning to deposit it on the top step. "Nanaba has the containers labelled by day. She knows how to get a malnourished dragon back up to speed so I would use as prescribed. It won't look like a lot at first, because it isn't. She's starting him on the same amount his feeding chart indicated and working him up from there."

"I'll text her later to thank her."

"She told me to tell you to give him very small amounts in many sittings like you would a baby bird. Her words." Mike grinned a little at the idea of Levi being a baby anything. "Though I can kind of see it. He has the 'so ugly it’s cute' thing going on, too.”

Erwin wasn’t sure if he agreed with that assessment. He hadn’t thought much about Levi’s appearance since he met the drake. He’d been too busy watching him for other reasons--to see if he’d die, to see if he’d kill, to see if he would try to run. He didn’t recall him being _ugly_ , though. Just short.

"How are you faring so far? I got your message about Levi waking up but I was already driving. Frankly, I'm shocked that your house is still standing." And the way Mike looked at it suggested that he didn’t expect that to last long, either.

"The incision alarmed him, but I think he'll accept what we had to do." Erwin actually wasn't entirely sure of that, but there was no sense in giving his friends any more fuel for their arguments. "He's trying not to cooperate, but I've gotten him to swallow some painkillers."

"Painkillers are good," Mike agreed. "Painkillers make you sleep." He turned back to the truck like something had occurred to him. "Don't let me leave with your books. I have the primer that Hanji wrote, but you'll have to pick through the others for useful information. They're geared more towards specific needs like ..." He flipped one of the books over to look at the title. "Land management. Actually, you don't need this one." He tossed it back into the seat, sorting through the others and handing two keepers to Erwin. "That guy is a hack," he said, referring to the book that wasn't Hanji's. "He's solidly in the 'dragon subjugation' camp but he has some good data. Just ignore the parts where he's being a dick."

"You bought this?"

Mike shrugged. "Two dollars and fifty cents at a second-hand bookstore. I wouldn't give him the royalties."

"I'll read Hanji's first," Erwin decided. Theirs was longer anyway. And had smaller font.

Much smaller.

"Is this a novel?"

"Essentially. It has a lot of good diagrams. Hanji just wasn't terribly concerned with the idea of information overload."

"Yes, I see." Someone needed to hook the doctor up with a decent graphic designer.

"There's also this." Mike pulled a flat wooden box from beneath his seat and set it carefully on top of the books in Erwin's arms. "It isn't high powered enough to get penetration if you're standing too far away, but I figured you could keep this one on you. The rifle wouldn't fit so well in your holster. Darts are in there."

Erwin nodded his thanks, but Mike was already reaching back under the seat for the rifle as well. "Don't you need one of these for the preserve?" Erwin asked.

"We keep several on hand in different places so we don't have to make a break for the next building if we have an emergency situation. We’re good to go."

"And these take the same sized dart?" Erwin had never used the handgun-sized tranq gun before. In most situations such a thing wasn't practical for use on a dragon. He would feel a little better having it close to him, though, even if he hoped he would have no occasion to use it. If he was right about the mellowing effect that bed rest would have on their interactions then putting Levi out shouldn't be necessary at all.

"Yeah, the darts are standard. Dose size is averaged out so for Levi it may be a little high, but I don't think it'd hurt him. He'll just feel like shit when he wakes up."

"I won't use it unless I have no other alternative. Thank you."

"No problem. Just don't get yourself killed. It'd be a wasteful, unnecessary way to die." Mike clapped him on the shoulder blade and turned to close the back door of the truck.

"Oh, before you go I meant to ask you if there was anything else I shouldn't feed him. Is there anything humans can eat that will kill a dragon?"

"Nothing that will _kill_ them," Mike said. "They have some foods they don't tolerate well but that's about the extent of it. Most groceries have a meat selection intended for dragons. Too much of the processed stuff isn't great for them, so keep bacon and sausage to a minimum unless it's dragon grade. A lot of humans buy from that section as well because in a way the meat is higher quality and fresher. Go figure. It's not vital that you cook the dragon grade meat, but it's still advisable if he can stand it. The only real way to know where your meat comes from is to pull it fresh off the animal and hunting is illegal without a permit even if you're a dragon."

Erwin could see that. The dragon population in their area was very high and if all of them hunted for their food the game population would bottom out. "How will I get Levi to accept cooked food after living so long on raw?"

"You may not," Mike admitted. "He's been eating frozen, shit-quality garbage for so long he probably doesn't know anything else. Try using dragon-grade bacon. Nobody can say no to bacon. And strangely enough, they normally take very quickly to seafood, though it seems to baffle them at first. Nanaba is into shellfish." Mike made a face at that. "As for other foods, don't let him eat many grains. He can tolerate a little, but dragon's bodies don't process them well. And don't let him have dairy. Ever. I've never heard of a dragon that could stomach dairy." Mike's tone suggested that he had a story about this that Erwin probably didn't want to hear.

Erwin never got to hear it, though, as a noise from around back had both men freezing in place. It had sounded like metal hitting stone--crashing into it, really--and Erwin had a feeling he knew exactly what it was. He had a metal birdbath out there, sitting on a half-finished garden path that would not be finished anytime in the foreseeable future. Bears or assassins or Levi, Erwin didn't know what to expect anymore. He and Mike looked at each other and silently moved.

Erwin sat his books into the back of Mike's truck, but flipped open the wooden case and drew out the tranquilizer. Mike had his firearm on his hip, but Erwin had nothing lethal and if it was a bear there was no sense in killing it. His cow-rearing neighbors would argue differently, but Erwin figured that relocation was just as effective. The partners went around Erwin's house in opposite directions, falling naturally into their work habits.

When Erwin peered around the corner of his house, though, he was only a little surprised to find that it was, _once again,_ Levi raising hell in his yard rather than any kind of bear or assassin. The bird bath had come down on his legs and he was scowling hard enough to melt the thing into slag as he carefully extracted himself from the toppled object. The only thing Erwin could think was that he'd either fallen into it or grabbed onto it for support and found it less sturdy than he'd hoped. He looked okay, if not pissed, and he probably had the painkillers to thank for that, but Erwin's eyes jumped straight to his incision anyway. No blood.

Erwin motioned for Mike to stay where he was and stepped around the corner, tucking the little tranq gun into the back of his pants and pulling his shirt over it. "What are you doing out here?"

Levi just glowered at him, barely pausing in his task of carefully sliding one leg at a time from beneath the downed lawn ornament. It didn't look to Erwin like the drake had been making a wild break for it. The way his birdbath had fallen suggested that he'd been facing the house when he went down as opposed to walking away. But Erwin didn't know of any other reason why Levi might be outside. Perhaps he had been leaving and he changed his mind, realized he was still too weak to fly. After the shock he’d had--the accusation in his eyes--Erwin had no idea if his interest in courtship was still intact. If it wasn’t, that would mean leaving.

"Do you want to go?"

Levi paused irritably, but he did actually shake his head--a quick jerk to indicate no--before easing carefully back. Since it was yes or no questions only, the detective tried to think of something else to guess, some other reason Levi might have had for taking a stroll. "Did you ... want some air?"

Levi just looked at him like he was a complete idiot and Erwin sighed.

"For whatever reason you went out, I don't see your IV stand. And walking down the stairs with a hole in your stomach is ridiculous. Come on, let's get you back in."

The minute Erwin moved, though, Levi was tensing, a low growl rumbling to life in his chest. Hearing a creature do that while looking almost perfectly human was more than a little unnerving, the dangerous glint in his eyes giving Erwin pause. "You aren't still angry about the surgery."

Levi didn't relax when Erwin stopped advancing, but the growl quieted. As its intensity diminished, the sound could have been mistaken for a purr if Erwin didn't know better. He stepped forward experimentally, testing Levi to see if he was putting up a front. And sure enough, the dragon's scowl deepened, but he did allow Erwin to come closer.

Right into striking distance.

The dragon was as quick as a cobra, swiping with his nails at Erwin's legs and flaying the detective's shin open like a carving knife through a slab of beef. Erwin was quick, though, lurching out of the way before a second strike could come. Levi winced, dropping to one elbow on the paving stones.

Then Mike was there, dragging Erwin even farther away and leveling his police issue Glock directly at Levi's face. "If I even think you’re about to shift I will put you down. Are you bleeding, Erwin?" His partner asked, too busy keeping his eyes on the dragon to glance away. Levi was trying to roll over so he could face them, alarm in his gray eyes, but the effort was hurting him more than helping. "Serves you right, you little asshole," Mike told him. His voice was low, calm, as he spoke what he believed to be true. "Has Erwin done anything except try to help you?"

_"Mike."_ Erwin reached out and took hold of the barrel, dragging the business end sideways until it was safely pointed in another direction. He could feel hot blood welling at the injury site, sliding down his leg and into his sock, but he didn’t say so. "I don't think he understands the incision. He thinks Grisha and I hurt him because we wanted to."

"The hell kind of crazy idea is that?"

Erwin shrugged, pulling Mike even farther away from the defensive drake. "He hasn't been taught anything else." Erwin knew fuck-all about how to care for an ailing dragon, but he did know how to interpret behavior. Mike hadn't been there to see what he had seen. "Aren't your younglings afraid of you?"

"They're afraid," Mike agreed, his voice dipping into an undertone so low that Erwin was forced to lean in to hear him. "But when they're afraid they don't kill people, Erwin."

"We do. We just finished euthanizing a stable full of sentient beings because someone with the power to order it was afraid. The only reason your younglings are any different from us _or_ from Levi is because they're babies."

"They haven't been programmed to murder everything that moves, either," Mike argued. "That's a significant difference." He only wanted to protect Erwin and the detective understood that, but he also wanted everyone to stop threatening his witness.

"Levi can't kill me right now. He can't even sit up.” Erwin motioned to the drake, who was sagging with exhaustion. “I have a little time to build the trust we need to move forward."

Mike looked over at the dragon, who had managed to flop over onto his side to look at them like being able to see what was going on would help him if Mike and Erwin really intended to hurt him. The larger man sighed. "You don't have _much_ time. He made it all the way down here before he collapsed. He’s healing fast. Do you need help getting him in?"

"I'm going to leave him there," Erwin said. "I'll watch him from the back stairs until he can get up on his own."

“Did you know that you’re bleeding?” Mike asked, nodding to the shredded fabric down by Erwin’s shin, which was rapidly reddening with blood.

“If I need stitches, I have dental floss,” Erwin joked. He had no idea how to stitch anything apart from buttons, which he was certain that his shin did not need.

Mike only shook his head. "I'll leave your books on the porch, then. Don't forget the cooler. And please go to the hospital if you need stitches. I’ll be in town if you need a sitter for the dragon."

Erwin actually followed Mike around to the front, though, seeing him off and then taking Levi's dinner and the books and going first to the kitchen to leave everything there on the counter for later. When he returned to the back yard he had a blanket and a first aid kit in his hands, Hanji's book tucked under his arm.

"I'm not bringing your whole nest out here," Erwin said, tossing the blanket from the back steps so it landed just within Levi's arm reach. "You need _some_ incentive to come inside. I bet you'll move when a bear shows up." Where was a large grizzly when you needed one, anyway?

Levi appeared to be ignoring Erwin, but he did reach for the blanket that he’d been given, awkwardly tucking it around himself and pulling his knees up into that familiar fetal position as he attempted to pillow some of the blanket under his cheek. "I would make you fix this if I thought for a second you wouldn't tear my whole leg off." Erwin pulled his sweatpants carefully over the gashes Levi had left, which were torn and ugly but not deep. They wouldn't need stitches, at least. Erwin didn't have time to go to the hospital. "I don't think I have bandages this size," he commented, rifling through the first aid kit for something he could use instead.

Levi's eyes followed him intently, watching every move like the process of first aid was fascinating to him. There was no telling what he made of it. The lower half of his face was hidden by the blanket and the rest of his face was still pinched with pain. It wasn't time yet for another dose of the hydrocodone, but he was over halfway. Erwin peeled the bloody sock from his foot and lifted it so he could carefully pour peroxide over his shin, allowing the fizzing blood to run out onto his back stairs. He didn't try to hide the face he made--let Levi see it.

"I know you don’t have much positive experience with humans ... if you have any at all. But places like the one we found you in don't attract anyone decent. You won't have met them there. But I know what I'm going to do when we get you inside." Erwin paused to dab at his skin with a folded gauze square, mopping up the blood as best as he could. He could see the wounds trying to clot so he left those alone, wiping carefully around them. "I'm going to feed you a chicken liver and show you the Hallmark channel."

Levi perked up with interest, but he made no move to get up. Erwin didn't think he was lying there to be contrary. The pain in his face was real, suggesting that he really wasn't able to move yet. "You'd be a lot more comfortable inside. Let me help you."

The dragon growled at him.

"Suit yourself. I can wait." Erwin left his bloody gauze pads in a pile with his ruined sock. That sock would be strictly a house sock from then on. He wasn't about to try and get the blood out of it. Levi watched him take a fresh gauze pad from the first aid kit and slather it in antibiotic ointment, placing it carefully over the wound so most of it was covered. It took two pads taped together to bandage the entire thing. And that tape was going to be hell coming off.

"Do you remember Hanji?” Erwin asked, lowering his torn sweatpants over the fresh bandage and leaning sideways against the stair rail. “They were with me at the stable that night. They wrote this care guide for dragons and I won't make it through the reading experience alone so I'm going to read it aloud."

He'd seen in the index that there was a chapter about the ideal diet for a dragon, so he skipped forward to that section of the book. It was a calculated move, reminding Levi that he was hungry and that food was available inside. Erwin wasn't above it.

He held the book out far enough that he could see it without his glasses and he began to read.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I honestly feel a little bad for all the shit I'm slinging at Levi. This isn't even all the shit either. There is more shit to come. Poor baby bird. xD


	8. The Treaty of Twinings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erwin proposes a ceasefire over tea and chicken liver while Levi discovers soap.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally, there was quite a bit more to this chapter. I tried to force it past its natural ending because I only had seven pages in the first draft. So the bad news is, this chapter is a little short. The good news is, it ends where it should have ended and I will probably have two complete chapters to post this weekend. I'm still adding to section b, now chapter 9, but I anticipate it being up sometime tomorrow or Sunday. 
> 
> Due to scheduling conflicts, this chapter has not been beta'd. Therefore, you can blame any errors on Mandy's store managers. I would be happy to provide their phone numbers to anyone who wishes to speak with them about this.

Erwin hadn't made it through half of the chapter before Levi started showing signs of restlessness. The detective had a reading voice that was ideally suited for bedtime stories, not science. His problem wasn't monotony, but the subtly lulling quality in the cadence he shifted into when he read for a long time. Levi was forced to shift his weight around if he wanted to avoid drifting off, his eyes blinking hard.

Hanji's information was as dense as Mike promised, but Erwin also hadn't expected to find the oyster's effect on serotonin reuptake in adult dragons to be such an interesting subject. According to Hanji's research, which Erwin was forced to skim for the parts that were written in layman's terms, oysters affected dragons in roughly the same way that chocolate was said to affect humans, elevating mood and relieving stress.

"I wonder if Nanaba packed any of those in your cooler," Erwin mused. "You could stand to have your mood elevated." Levi growled at him and Erwin looked over the top of his book at the ill-tempered drake. "You're only proving my point for me."

Levi snorted harshly, easing himself onto an elbow and rolling over to get hands and knees beneath him. He seemed about ready to begin his great pilgrimage up the back steps, though he paused to test his own endurance before he continued. Erwin waited a moment to see if Levi pushed himself onward, his eyes trailing blandly up the drake's quivering arms to his shoulders, which did not look stable. "There's no rush," the detective told him. "Falling now will only ensure that you're out here longer."

Naturally, the warning went unacknowledged. No one could argue that Levi didn't have guts, but unfortunately there was a very real danger of seeing that in a very real way. _"Please_ be sure to keep your insides on the inside. If you feel any pulling around your incision, just stop."

Erwin closed the book and stood. “I’ll leave the door open. I’m right inside the kitchen if you fall down the stairs. Unless you’d like my help?”

Levi continued ignoring the detective until he gave up and stepped back into the kitchen to attend to Nanaba’s cooler. She’d packed the thing full of disposable plastic containers like the kind that she and Mike bought in bulk for the dragons in their rehabilitation center. So long as it didn't need cooking, Nanaba was brilliant at meal prep. Only her forays into the kitchen required safety precautions. She handled the dietary needs of the dragons housed at the rehabilitation center, so she was excellent with nutrition. She just had an alarming tendency to leave the stove on.

Every red lid had a hand-written label, covered by a strip of clear packing tape to keep the paper safe from the entire truckload of ice that had been nestled into every crevice. It was hard to even tell how much was hidden under there. Before Erwin went any farther he pulled out his phone and opened Nanaba’s chat window.

_thank you, nana._

He saw Nanaba typing almost immediately, so he didn’t put his phone down. _one less thing for you to worry with,_ she replied. _i want you to focus on not being killed._

_i wouldn’t have known where to start._ Hanji’s primer was dead useful, but they’d geared it towards the standard dragon situation where everything was safe and legal and there hadn’t been any abuse or malnourishment involved. There wasn’t a standard diet plan included for circumstances like Levi’s.

_did mike give you instructions?_

_he told me to follow the numbers and use as prescribed._

That time, Nanaba sent several texts in reply--something that normally only Hanji and Moblit did.

_let him start nibbling on other foods in a few days. SMALL things erwin nothing larger than the size of one standard portion for the full day._

And,

_any fruit is fine, green vegetables are universally safe, and blueberries are great. they're small and good for you and he's more likely to eat them than vegetables._

And,

_i put just a few in their own container with a couple other things._

That was some damn good thinking because Erwin didn't normally buy blueberries unless they came from a farmer's market, which were few and far between in November. He certainly didn't have any floating around his kitchen.

_you're a godsend, nana_

_i know. i do this for a living though i didn’t go out of my way or anything._

Erwin looked down into the perfect, well-organized cooler and didn’t buy that for a second. She’d gone at least a little out of her way. _i appreciate you._

_< 3_

First, Erwin pulled everything out of the cooler so he could get an idea of how much he needed to find space for, shaking each container over the sink to knock some of the water off before lining them up along the countertop. The next step was to make a space in his freezer and begin stacking the highest numbers on the bottom, working his way up and forward until he had everything in. Miraculously, it all fit without necessitating any impromptu deals with the devil. Day three had to go into the door, but that would no longer be a problem on day four. Erwin put days one and two in the refrigerator to thaw, though he pulled a chunk of … something … out of the first container to go ahead and defrost in the microwave.

Levi was there in the open doorway when he turned around, watching Erwin with something inscrutable playing across his face. He looked as though he’d been there for a while, but Erwin barely paused, rinsing his hands under the faucet and allowing Levi to stare if that was what he wanted to do.

“I’m defrosting an organ of some kind if you’re hungry,” Erwin let him know. “Nanaba took your diet from the stable and used it to calculate how best to get your food situation handled. It probably isn’t news to you that they weren’t feeding you enough.”

Levi made a face. Erwin didn’t think it was intentional, but he’d caught it all the same.

“The thing about being hungry, though, is that your body gets used to it. Your stomach shrinks. We don’t want to shock your system so we’re working you up slowly to a full meal. Please don’t take that as a cruelty.”

They stared at each other until the timer beeped.

Erwin did feel cruel, pulling that little nothing morsel from the microwave and setting it at the countertop island for Levi, the plate around it as white and barren as a salt flat. “This isn’t everything,” he felt compelled to promise. “In about thirty minutes you can have another.” Nanaba hadn’t said thirty minutes specifically, but that seemed like an adequate amount of time for a body to adjust. “I’ll make you some tea as well. Do you think tea would bother your stomach?”

Levi looked at him blankly. Of course he had no idea what Erwin was asking him. It wasn’t as though Marty Branch had been letting everyone out of their stalls for high tea and a little spirited gossip before he threw them into an arena to die. The dragon didn’t seem remotely curious about what he’d been missing, barely giving the tea a moment’s thought. He did venture farther into the house for the sake of eating, either not knowing to close the back door behind him or not caring.

The drake moved like his whole body hurt, taking the widest possible path around Erwin to access the countertop where his food had been left. It seemed that for the moment, hunger would overrule caution. “It’s been over nine days since you at last,” the detective reminded him. “I would take it slow.”

Levi glanced up at him, his expression stony. He paused to examine the high surface and then the stools, visually exploring both before he tried stepping up onto one. He was mindful of his incision--probably because it wouldn’t stop hurting him long enough to forget about it--and he held onto the granite overhang for support as he settled carefully into the seat. Erwin could see how slowly he distributed his weight around the injury, wearing a look on his face like he was slipping into ice water.

It was clear that Levi didn’t know what to make of the little organ on his plate. He’d been eating something that looked like ground beef--slaughterhouse refuse, probably. It would not have been labelled for human consumption, whatever it was. The meat had been brown with age rather than rosy and fresh. There had been bone and skin and matted fur. Erwin wouldn’t have fed that shit to his compost pile. The dragon leaned over the plate with obvious interest, his nostrils barely moving as he breathed in experimentally. His brow smoothed.

Levi’s first impulse was to bend forward and try taking the item as he would have in his dragon form, angling his head to one side in preparation to snap it up. He’d only just opened his mouth, though, when he went too far and winced, his incision stopping him just inches away from his goal and forcing an unwilling retreat. Erwin glanced at the cutlery drawer, not wanting to over-complicate things for Levi but not wanting him to hurt himself, either.

The man didn’t have long to make up his mind. Levi figured out on his own what the most logical solution would be. With an expression of deep disgust over touching his food, he reached out and pinched the deep purple organ between his index finger and thumb, throwing it into his mouth as quickly as possible.

“Chew that,” Erwin said abruptly, having recalled the way he tossed back the peanut butter cracker as effortlessly as a crocodile. “Human throats are small. You’ll choke.”

Levi obviously understood the problem. His cheeks had distended slightly, his eyes widening with the realization that his mouth was too full and he was stuck that way. Erwin could see him working his jaw as he tried turning the thing around in his mouth, unwilling to spit it out and unable to swallow. The detective had to turn away quickly because he didn’t think Levi would appreciate hearing the laughter that was trying to rise in his chest. When he realized he needed to fill the teakettle, though, he had to say, “Levi, I’m not going to take it from you if you spit it out. You can try again.”

The dragon’s eyes darted up to Erwin’s face, darkening suspiciously at the lightness in his tone. It took every last year of the man’s interrogation experience to keep his own expression neutral, but Levi didn’t seem to be buying it. He froze until Erwin looked down, refusing to admit that anything was wrong by acting to correct the problem while the detective was still looking. _Everything is perfectly normal,_ that expression stated. _What the hell are you looking at?_

“Next time we can cut it in half,” Erwin said as the kettle filled. He was pretending like he didn’t see Levi in his periphery trying to chew with too much in his mouth. “I’m sorry. It’s difficult to anticipate what you won’t know.”

Erwin was pretty sure he saw the dragon’s scowl lighten, but it did not dissipate. There was still some tension between his eyebrows that the detective was sorry to have caused, though he hadn’t seen much of anything else. Honestly, it surprised him that Levi had been so quick to assure him he wasn’t going anywhere, that he hadn’t been trying to leave that morning. Unless, of course, he thought that Erwin would restrain him or lock him up if he caught wind of any escape attempts.

Well, Erwin realized, he would. He would have to. Fighting ring champions couldn’t simply be _unleashed._ There was no telling where Levi would end up or who would die because he ended up there. If it was freedom Levi wanted then perhaps there was someplace far enough, someplace remote enough, that no one would wander into his path. After all of this, after Erwin had his testimony, perhaps there was still something he could do for Levi--someplace safe where they could release him into his own custody without worrying about anyone else’s safety.

Maybe they could ship him to Siberia.

Erwin turned off the water with a low sigh and went to set his badly neglected kettle on the stove, lingering a little longer than necessary over pulling tea down from the cabinet. The least he could do for Levi right then was give him a minute to make any necessary adjustments to his culinary situation. Erwin’s tea was on the very top shelf with the extra coffee beans and it was clearly labelled, but the detective shifted through the tins like he actually had more than one to keep track of. He was a coffee drinker himself. The tea was for Hanji and Moblit when they visited. Those two were peas in a pod that way, most of their likes and interests aligning perfectly as though they had been made to fit together.

“This isn’t a very strong tea.” He didn’t think it was, anyway. Erwin had little to compare it to and all of it tasted weak compared to coffee, but he thought he remembered Hanji saying something about the way this one brewed. When he looked back over at Levi, the dragon had himself together again, slowly pulling his index finger from between his lips with his smug eyes resting on Erwin like he wanted the detective to take note of his success. That wasn’t what Erwin took note of, however. As soon as that finger was freed from Levi’s mouth, his thumb got the same careful treatment, sliding past his parted lips so his tongue could receive it.

Did he realize how that looked?

The drake hadn’t finished, either. His pink tongue flashed into the space between his fingers, chasing a stray drop of blood or water left from the thawing process. And all the while, his keen grey eyes never once left Erwin.

That _couldn’t_ be intentional.

Levi had just taken a couple pieces out of Erwin’s leg, which still twinged with the memory of those dark fingernails. He was hungry and in pain and he clearly did not want Erwin anywhere near him. Courtship or not, it only looked like flirting. When, in any case, would he have had a chance to learn what it meant to flirt with someone, much less how to go about it?

All the same and whatever it meant, the realization that Levi could _look_ that way was … unexpected.

“Would you like to wash your hands?” Erwin asked him dryly. The drake paused, interested but uncomprehending. He didn’t seem to have a problem with Erwin’s approach so long as the counter stayed between them and there were no sudden movements involved. Levi didn’t make a sound, just watched the detective pull the lever on the faucet to get the water going. “Soap,” he explained, holding up the green-tinted bottle and demonstrating the pump. As he lathered his hands and the kitchen filled with the heady scents of spearmint and eucalyptus, Levi inhaled once--deeply--and something in his face completely changed. “The point of this is to remove dirt. If you get something on your hands, you wash them. Also before food prep and after using the toilet,” he remembered to add. He didn’t think the drake was listening to him anyway.

Levi looked like he was about two seconds from sliding out of his seat, so Erwin finished rinsing and backed away to give the dragon space as he padded over and thrust his hands under the warm water. The temperature hadn’t been something he was expecting. His hands flew back in shock like he’d been burnt, but his surprise must have been pleasant because he eased them slowly back under, the tension in his shoulders easing with a small shiver. For a long time, he didn’t even think to try the soap. He just stood there with his hands under the water until Erwin began feeling as though he had unwittingly intruded upon a religious experience.

When Levi did move to take the soap, he raised his sudsy hands to his face and Erwin actually stepped forward with a warning not to eat it dying in his mouth as Levi simply took another breath, his small, prominent ribs swelling until he looked like the skeletal specter of death. Too much of him was sharp that way, too visible beneath his papery skin. Erwin found himself wondering, not for the first time, how Levi was able to last. Every breath he took seemed like a miracle.

The detective had been accurate in his memory of Levi’s spinal column. Each protruding vertebra was a point of darkness along his skin, fading gradually into flesh tones just as his fingers did. He was lighter at the base of his skull--a greenish gray that transitioned into inky blacks at the center of his back, only to lighten again as the line descended along the lumbar curve and disappeared into the cleft of--

Erwin turned away from Levi to attend to the kettle. It looked like it had been asking a while for his attention, the white steam heavy with a rolling boil. Erwin turned the knob on the gas and left it to cool a few degrees while he measured tealeaves into the pot. Somewhere behind him the water went off, but Erwin did not look around at the dragon, reaching instead for his kettle. Hanji knew all about tea. They had imparted enough of their knowledge to Erwin that he was aware he was doing something wrong, but he hadn’t been paying close enough attention to the details to know what it was. He had an uncomfortable suspicion that the water was still too hot.

Levi was watching Erwin closely when he turned around, leaning unconsciously against the sink with the back of his hand under his nose like he couldn’t stop himself from seeking more of that spearmint eucalyptus scent. Erwin didn’t think it was a casual lean. There was a touch too much weight on the counter for that, like he actually needed the support.

“I’m going to set you up in the living room for now,” Erwin told him, giving the drake a wide berth as he went for the kitchen door. “I'll run upstairs while the tea steeps to get your blankets.”

Erwin didn’t take everything from the guest room. He piled two pillows and several folded blankets into his arms and left the rest where it was. He had the sofa’s size to consider. It wasn’t a small piece of furniture, but it wasn’t pillow fort material, either. When Erwin returned from the upper level, Levi drifted to the kitchen doorway to watch him lay one of the blankets and a pillow down as a starting point. Levi would need to lie down before Erwin could do much more than that. If the drake allowed it. Otherwise he’d be on his own to build his nest as best as he could manage.

“You can drink your tea in here if you like,” Erwin offered, relieved to find that Levi backpedaled quickly rather than guard the kitchen doorway and growl at him like a pitbull. He still seemed to want the counter between them, relaxing only when Erwin skirted back around it to divvy out their tea. He figured it would be best to pour himself a cup as well, whether he preferred it or not. Levi would likely want to see Erwin drink the unknown beverage before he attempted it himself, so the detective made sure to pour within full view of the dragon’s curious eyes. That was the way he would want it. He added a little sugar to both cups as well--enough that it took the edge of bitterness off, but not so much that a person who didn’t like sugar in their tea would complain.

“If it’s too bitter you can add more sugar,” Erwin told the drake, bringing both the sugar bowl and Levi’s cup over to the counter. The drake hadn’t seated himself, but he looked close to ending up on the floor if he didn’t. It was mistrust, perhaps, that kept him standing in spite of that. He tensed as the detective approached, but did not back away or growl at him. He just stood there, pale as a ghost, and let the detective reach out to place the cup on the counter before him. Erwin would call that progress.

But Levi did not move. He looked at the tea and he looked at Erwin, though it seemed to the detective that he was trying to anticipate what form this new cruelty would take. It was a disturbing thing to see in the drake’s eyes, but there wasn’t any quick and easy way to erase a thing like that. It had been so deeply ingrained that Erwin considered himself lucky for being allowed this close at all. The detective went back for his own cup and the brew was a touch too hot, but he made a point to sip at it as he returned to his position across from Levi. The counter stretched between them like a battlefield, their English Breakfast peace treaty steaming serenely at the center.

“You saw me pour it,” Erwin pointed out. “The tea came from the same pot and I’m drinking it, too.”

That didn’t seem to make any difference to the drake. He only frowned, his eyes on the cup and his body unmoving.

“Levi.”

He did look at Erwin then. Quickly, too, as if something in the man’s tone made him perk up attentively.

“Tell me honestly. Were you trying to leave this morning?”

The drake shook his head immediately, Erwin’s question startling him into abrupt and unintentional honestly. He seemed just as surprised by it as Erwin was.

“Then you still intend to court me.”

That one, Levi did think about. He stood motionless for a long time, searching Erwin intently for the thread of his thoughts, hoping perhaps to follow his line of questioning to its end objective. Erwin could see him wondering, _why this question?_ Then he nodded once, curtly.

“I don’t follow all of this courtship logic.” Or lack thereof. “I haven’t read those chapters yet in Hanji’s book, but Nanaba tells me that what you’re feeling now is something like a question. There’s something you want to know so badly that you would risk being here with me to get your answer.” Levi waited expectantly rather than confirm or deny anything, apparently through with being forthcoming. “So I’m only wondering, how do you intend to find out?”

Levi squinted suspiciously at Erwin, his brow knitting thoughtfully.

“I’m not going to presume that I understand how difficult this is for you. And I don’t think lightly of your situation.” Erwin set his cup on the counter in front of him and lay his hands to either side, intentionally placing them in a position where Levi could easily see them.

“I _do_ understand that you’re uncomfortable being here, but you can’t bear leaving. I realize that you don’t know how to interpret what Grisha and I did to you except on the basis of what you’ve already experienced. You know better than most how cruel humans can be, but you hear me telling you that I hurt you to save your life and you don’t know what to make of that. I can’t imagine what it must be like to experience all this in such isolation. Never in my life have I been so unfathomably alone.”

Levi’s eyes fell quickly to the teacup between them, his expression darkening.

“I think you want to reach out to someone or you wouldn’t be capable of experiencing the allure.” Erwin couldn’t be certain of that. In fact, he had no idea if it was true. But if he’d resorted to firing shots in the dark, that one was as good as any. “I don’t blame your caution. But at some point, you will have to stop looking at me like I’m a monster and start finding out if it’s true.”

Erwin leaned forward and pushed Levi’s cup towards him with the knuckle of his index finger. “Step one.”

For a long, frozen moment, Levi did not move. His eyes moved to Erwin’s hand and tracked it as it came within range--close enough that if he wanted another piece of the detective he could have it--and the teacup that was close enough that if he reached out for it he wouldn’t have to bend. The moment passed and Erwin’s hand drew safely out of striking distance, Levi’s eyes following almost like he regretted the wasted opportunity. But then his expression cleared and he looked up into the detective’s face with something unnerving and unfamiliar in his eyes.

Without ever breaking eye contact, Levi rose onto his toes to lean across the counter, ignoring his own teacup in favor of reaching out and taking Erwin’s by the rim. The gesture was bold, requiring that Levi test the detective’s personal space to do it. He did not move quickly, giving Erwin plenty of time to intercept him, to hurt him, if that was what he wanted. But the drake came away untouched, pulling Erwin’s cup towards him and lifting it safely into his custody.

There was no sure way to decode the challenging quirk Levi’s eyebrow made as he turned and retreated to the living room with his stolen prize. It was the first time he’d seen him so genuinely assertive. The rest had been bluster and fronting--an injured creature trying to make itself large before something larger. Levi had lived his life backed into a corner, scratching and clawing at something like survival, but as he left Erwin standing there on the opposite side of the counter minus one teacup, the detective had to wonder if he had just seen the first step forward.

“Okay,” he pronounced slowly, taking Levi’s tea with him on his way to the next room. “We can do half-steps, then.”


	9. The Heart of TV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erwin progresses through dracology 101 while Levi drinks everybody's tea and learns about human holidays.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My beta is still doing something that involves being really sick, so it's more of this unedited gobbledegook for now. I feel like I'm throwing Frankenstein out into the world with nothing but a bottle of water and a peanut butter sandwich to tide him over. Good luck, my ugly. <3

Correctly inferring that the sofa was to be his, Levi was working out a way to ease himself down without spilling tea all over his lap. He resembled an elderly war veteran the way he moved like he had ten thousand pounds of scar tissue and arthritic joints. And it was a little bit funny until Erwin realized that the former was probably true.

For lack of interest, Erwin hadn't filled his own teacup very high. The one in his hands--intended for Levi--was the full one. That was probably the only factor that prevented the scalding liquid from sloshing onto the dragon’s bare thighs as he seated himself awkwardly on the very edge of the seat. If Levi noticed that, he didn’t give any indication. He was too preoccupied with eyeballing Erwin’s living room, scowling around at the books on his shelves and the antique clocks on his mantle, the empty curio cabinet that once held a number of hideous trinkets--collectable salt and pepper shakers, mostly. Maybe some travel spoons. The house had belonged to an elderly aunt before Erwin inherited everything and much of the original furniture remained. So long as it didn’t have a paisley pattern, Erwin held onto it.

In other words, the sofa and chairs were new.

The fact was beginning to dawn on Erwin that there were degrees of nuance to Levi’s scowls. His current expression did not seem heated or agitated. It was almost, but not quite like concentration--a light form of it maybe. He was focused, that was all, his brow seeming to tense as his basic go-to reaction. He probably wasn’t even aware that he was doing it. Levi had one of those faces that was simply built harshly. Any negative expression crossing it was amplified tenfold by the features themselves whether the drake truly meant to come off that way or not. Everything about him was sharp from his nose to his chin to the shape of his eyes. His lips and eyebrows were thin, his gray irises worn and chilly.

Erwin sat down in his own chair by the fireplace and flipped on his little space heater, stretching his bare feet into the appliance's reach with a contented sigh.

The dragon could not seem to get comfortable, perching so close to the edge of the sofa that if he inched forward he'd find himself in the floor. Either he wasn’t sure how to operate the furniture or he wasn't sure he would get into trouble for sitting there. He had to stop for a long moment to catch his breath once he settled, the small amount of color he _did_ have draining rapidly from his cheeks. He blinked hard, visibly forcing his body to keep going when it was clear to Erwin that it wouldn't.

“If you want to try the tea later, I can save it for you,” Erwin offered. “It warms up in the microwave.”

Levi huffed, but he did not bend to something as paltry as losing consciousness. He waited a few moments longer, but that was all. Before long, he was lifting the cup to his lips with trembling fingers, grasping it by the rim as though he didn't realize what the handle was for. The tea was still hot enough to scald the inside of an unwary mouth, but Levi hardly batted an eye. He shared that heat resistance with other dragons--with Nanaba and Moblit, who could both drink their tea and coffee almost straight off the burner without showing any sign of discomfort. Their natural heat resistance transferred somewhat from their dragon forms to their human ones, but so did their cold intolerance. Nanaba and Moblit were always talking about how chilly their fingers and toes got in the winter. Then there was the other end of it, with Mike and Hanji threatening to expire from heat stroke if the dragons did not lay off the central heating. They were like so many couples before them who could not come to an agreement on the thermostat, every winter turning into a casual struggle between species for control of the air temperature. Then Levi breathed in abruptly and Erwin stopped contemplating it. He stopped contemplating everything, thinking Levi had hurt himself or torn something. Erwin looked over in full expectation of seeing that incision bleed, but Levi did not appear to be in any immediate distress--the opposite, in fact.

The drake glanced quickly up at Erwin like the man had surprised him, like the tea had surprised him, though Erwin hadn’t done anything to draw his attention that way and he wasn't sure why Erwin's watery, scalded tea leaves would elicit such an expression. The way Levi was looking at him--like he’d done something worthy of a Nobel Prize--had Erwin completely bewildered. It was such a little thing--a couple spoonfuls of dried leaves from the supermarket, nothing fancy like the stuff Hanji and Moblit bought. Levi took another sip and only then was Erwin sure that it had to be the tea. He watched the drake's eyes flutter shut in spite of the detective's presence right there in the room with him, only the low coffee table serving as a barrier between them. Levi had never taken such a risk, he was sure. The drake had never willingly moved his eyes from Erwin, the wary cast rarely abating unless it was forced away by pain. The detective's opinion on tea did an immediate one-eighty.

Erwin hesitated to speak. Reminding Levi that he was there seemed like a poor way to move them forward. Let the drake realize for himself what he'd done. Or not. Let them slide naturally into the trust they were working towards if that was what it took. Let them wonder later how it had happened. Erwin thought he had imagined the look he'd seen on his witness's face--a product of wishful thinking, perhaps. But he waited a moment for the cup to shift and in that time he saw clearly, his attention catching on the small upturned corner of Levi's mouth. Well goddamn, the drake could smile.

Without uttering a word, Erwin caught the dragon's eye and took a small sip from the cup in his hands as well. He wasn't sure that the tea theft had been related to Levi's caution, but the cup Levi took _had_ been the only one he'd seen the detective drink from. The dragon’s attention jumped immediately to Erwin’s Adam’s apple, watching for the telltale slide of an unfeigned swallow.

Levi began frowning as soon as Erwin leaned sideways in his chair to place the cup on the edge of the table between them. The padded arm of his chair caught him by the underarm as he stretched out to push the cup away from him, moving it as close to the dragon as he could reach. Levi paused with his own teacup hovering just beneath his mouth, his brow tight with incomprehension.

“I made the tea for you,” Erwin explained. “I don’t enjoy it much. It was only here for Hanji and Moblit when they visit and there’s no sense in drinking something I don’t prefer when you could have it instead.”

The dragon’s head canted off-center in an unmistakable question. Erwin could see his eyes searching, moving from feature to feature like he was trying to read a language that he didn’t understand. After a long moment, the dragon seemed to realize that there was still tea in his mouth and he swallowed, breaking his own concentration. But he continued to watch Erwin as he finished his first cup, suspicion and curiosity warring across his face. Occasionally, his attention would fall to the cup on the table, not sure what to make of it.

“You don’t really think I would tamper with something I just drank myself, do you?” Erwin asked him. “Where would the sense be in that?”

Levi looked away, troubled.

The dragon made his way through the end of his first cup slowly, like thought he would never be allowed to have tea again and he wanted to commit the flavor to memory. When he’d finished, though, he slowly sat the empty cup on the table and reached for the full one that Erwin had left for him. By that time, the detective had gone back to his reading, wanting to finish the chapter on dietary needs before flipping back from the front to start from the beginning. He saw Levi move, but did not look up. He didn’t want it to seem like he was too interested in whether or not Levi drank from his original cup. It would look too suspicious, even if it was true for different reasons. When Levi placed his lips to the rim, it was a step forward. _That_ was what Erwin found so interesting to watch.

“Is that not cold?” Erwin asked once he’d seen the cup tip upwards and given Levi enough time to swallow. “I can warm it up for you.”

Levi shrugged apathetically, so Erwin didn’t push, simply returning to his book as though it meant nothing to him at all that Levi was learning by inches not to be so wary of him.

The dragon became increasingly fidgety as he worked his way through the second cup. He did make it all the way to the bottom, but the way he looked when he reached forward to leave the dregs on the table hinted at imminent unconsciousness. He actually swayed as he bent forward, grabbing onto the edge of the table like he’d become dizzy.

“I’ll make more tea when it's time for your next dose of medicine," the detective promised, happy to see that Levi's interest in the drink was not in danger of waning anytime soon. “For now, let’s get you tucked in before you hit your head on my coffee table. Levi, I need you to test me," he reminded the drake when his eyebrows started pulling downwards. "I can't prove anything to you unless you allow it."

There was no growling, but Levi lay tense as a bowstring when Erwin approached him. He drew his knees up quickly, shielding the incision from the detective until Erwin passed him the second pillow to curl around. Once it was in place he seemed a little more comfortable, reaching over the top of the pillow and clinging to it like he'd found something to hold onto in a stormy sea. He scowled all the way through the process of Erwin tucking him in, but he allowed the man to bundle blankets around him until he looked like a malignant sofa tumor. Those wicked nails stayed safely away from Erwin's flesh the whole time in spite of his obvious better judgment. Erwin could see the effort that was going into that decision and he appreciated it.

"Do you know about television?" The detective asked as he picked up the remote. "It's one of the many forms of entertainment that normal, healthy people enjoy."

True to his word, Erwin scrolled through the TV guide until he found the channel he wanted--little used and undervalued up until this moment when it turned out he needed it most. The Hallmark channel was already showing Christmas movies despite the holiday being over a month away, but he supposed it was still appropriately heartwarming, if heavily themed for the season.

"All of the films they're showing are related to a human holiday …"

Levi actually turned his head to look at the screen from the proper orientation, his wide eyes glowing. Erwin lost track of what he'd been about to say, distracted by the way Levi's irises darted, skimming across the moving pictures like he was seeing magic. It didn’t matter that Erwin had stopped speaking right in the middle of an explanation. The detective could have been describing the phenomenon of sympathetic male pregnancy and Levi wouldn’t have noticed a thing. He’d lost the dragon as soon as his black television screen flared to life.

Well, at least they'd found something nice and safe for Levi to occupy his waking hours with. Erwin could only imagine the trouble a bored fighting ring champion might get himself into once he became more mobile. Allowing himself to feel somewhat relieved, the detective took their cups back to the kitchen and left them in the sink, walking behind the sofa rather than in front for both trips.

_tea isn't going to hurt his stomach, is it?_ He asked Nanaba once he reclaimed the book he'd been reading from. He hadn't bothered marking the page, so he had to flip back through for his spot towards the end of the diet chapter. There wasn’t much left--just a listing of the types of flour that did not seem to upset a dragon’s stomach. He skipped over a lot of that for the moment, only interested in familiarizing himself with the material so he could look it up later if he had questions. There were more urgent matters that he needed to learn about before he returned to the subject of flour. He was just flipping back towards the front when his phone buzzed on his knee.

_tea?_ Nanaba asked. She must have been riding out in a truck or working at the rehabilitation center to have noticed his message that quickly. _what sort of tea?_

_just regular black tea._ The first chapter covered basic biology and natural history, though Hanji’s take on it was far from basic. There were actually several pages of diagrams that represented both the dragon and the human forms, the latter of which was almost identical to human biology so far as Erwin could tell. He allowed himself to be distracted by these until his phone buzzed again, causing Levi's eyes to swivel towards him.

"It's only my phone."

Levi looked away quickly, more interested in Hallmark, where a young boy was deeply embroiled in a conversation with Santa Claus on the subject of Christmas miracles--something about the boy’s mother and her terminal cancer diagnosis.

_is that the swill that hanji likes?_ Nanaba's message read.

_that is the exact swill, yes._ Erwin flipped a couple more pages, slowly working his way towards the front of the book as small fragments of information caught his eye and distracted him into reading a few lines before moving on. He would have to skim everything first for the most vital sections and then go back to fill in the details. Erwin could read fairly quickly, but the tome in his hands was a complete dragon encyclopedia.

_wow ew,_ Nanaba wrote. _black tea isn't a problem but be cautious with that hippie shit. if it says it’s herbal you better ask someone about it._

_what if he drinks a lot of the black?_ Erwin asked. _significant quantities. there still shouldn’t be any problem?_ He paused, lingering on a heading that caught his eye. Hanji had warned him over a week ago, way back at the start when he first pulled Levi out of his stall, not to grab the back of his neck unless he absolutely had to. They’d said Levi wouldn’t forgive him. Erwin had almost forgotten it, but that subheading had all of it rushing back. _Tonic Immobility Via The Nape,_ the bold font declared.

Erwin’s phone buzzed. _as long as he’s also drinking water he should be fine. don’t let him get dehydrated because all he’s drinking is tea._

_okay, thank you._

_i’m here all week,_ came the immediate reply.

The detective set his phone aside, but he flipped the ringer back on before he settled in with the mysterious subheading he’d just found:

_Various forms of tonic immobility have been observed in a number of species that would ordinarily seem very far removed. Anyone who is familiar with the common house cat has likely been exposed to a version of this fascinating reflexive behavior, often called scruffing, which occurs when an adult cat lifts its young by the back of the neck. This will cause a kitten to still, its limbs and tail tucking close to its body. Studies suggest that the house cat uses this behavior to assist with transportation--an understandable necessity when one’s offspring have the approximate energy of an atom bomb dressed in a furry coat. But tonic immobility occurs with a number of other mammals as well, including, perhaps, human catatonic behavior, which is currently classified as a psychological condition._

_Mammals do not have the market cornered on tonic immobility, however. It has been demonstrated in birds, fish, and reptiles with a number of proposed evolutionary functions from self-defence to mating …_

Erwin reached for his phone again. _hey hanji?_

The doctor’s reply came even more quickly than Nanaba’s, though it was a good deal less helpful. _SHHHHH!!!_ Erwin hardly questioned the three exclamation points, setting his phone to the side without worrying about it. He skipped over several more paragraphs of introductory material before he found the relevant selection.

_Research still has not proposed an airtight reason as to why dragons can be counted among the number of species that experience tonic immobility. The effects, however, align roughly with what we have seen from nature as a whole. Gripping a dragon by the back of the neck in either of their forms will induce a temporary state of paralysis that can last up to fifteen minutes following cessation of contact. The response that follows is determined by a dragon’s relationship to the instigator._

_When tonic immobility is initiated by a dragon’s bonded mate, or reciprocal, the effects can be quite remarkable. Mated pairs will use the reflex sexually, as a gentle pinch or bite to the back of the neck causes a dragon to go boneless and is reported to heighten the experiences of sensation and arousal. A light rub or graze of the fingernails can encourage relaxation. When induced by a reciprocal, this state decreases cortisol levels and triggers the increased production of oxytocin, which is a neuropeptide that promotes feelings of devotion, trust, and intimacy. It is important to note that these findings do not apply to every dragon sampled. Some find the vulnerability uncomfortable even within the context of a healthy relationship._

_Lingering effects of tonic immobility include decreased reaction time, lethargy, and disorientation. A dragon in this position is significantly impaired, meaning that it should only be done with a dragon’s unquestioning consent in a location where they feel safe. The sole exceptions to this rule are cases involving extreme medical necessity. Veterinarians will take a dragon by the back of the neck in situations where the dragon is in danger of causing harm to themselves or to others. Scruffing a dragon can temporarily combat psychological shock, panic, and delirium by slowing the heart rate and forcing the patient to lie still, allowing treatment to take place._

_Sustained periods of tonic immobility--particularly when performed by anyone apart from a dragon’s reciprocal--can have the opposite effect as well, increasing cortisol and blood pressure levels and causing severe psychological distress. For this reason, even a veterinarian will only attempt to scruff a dragon in a last ditch effort to …_

Erwin actually jumped when his phone went off, earning himself an irritated scowl from Levi’s section of the room. The drake’s brows shot back up, though, as he caught a real look at Erwin’s face, his focus jumping back to him in a quick double-take before Erwin was able to wipe his expression clean. Considering what Erwin had just been reading there was no telling what Levi saw.

_Sorry about that,_ Hanji’s message said. He could still feel the dragon looking at him, though he pretended not to see him. _I was at the tail end of a session and I forgot to silence my phone._

_i didn’t take offense._ Levi turned away from him with a short huff, unable to keep his attention off of Hallmark for very long at a stretch. Something was going on between Santa Claus and the boy’s mother, so he must have agreed to help out in the spirit of the holiday.

_What’s going on? Are you and Levi doing okay?_

Tempting as it was to look up at Levi as he answered, Erwin was still wary of the expression on his face. _he learned today that he likes tea. a lot._

_Aww, what a babe. What tea, though? You don’t mean the stuff in your kitchen, do you?_

_that’s all I have. why?_

Hanji appeared to be typing and then going back and erasing what they wrote like they couldn’t figure out how best to word their response. _Twinings makes a decent tea,_ they started. _For a supermarket brand. But if Levi has discovered a real taste for it, I have a couple of websites I can give you that will allow you to order samples of different kinds for a reasonable sum. I’ve ordered from both and the staff are friendly and helpful. I get all my tea from them._

The detective squinted suspiciously at the screen. He was fairly certain that Hanji had just found a diplomatic way to inform him that his supermarket tea was sub par. _do you and moblit go home talking about how plebeian my tea is?_

_No of course not,_ the doctor replied quickly. Too quickly. _We know you aren’t a tea drinker so we’re gentle with you._

_i see._

_While you’re ordering your samples, get yourself a teapot with a strainer that allows the tea leaves to unfurl completely. Yours is a little claustrophobic._

_my tea strainer is claustrophobic_

_Yes. It would be a good bonding opportunity,_ Hanji suggested. _Sit down with him and choose a teapot together. Let him select his own tea samples._

Erwin looked up at Levi from beneath his eyebrows, unwilling to raise his head just yet. _neither of us would have any idea what to try. it will all be gibberish._

_I would start with the basics. Suggest blends that are similar to English Breakfast, Irish Breakfast, Earl Grey, maybe an authentic Darjeeling. If he likes Twinings EB those will all be fairly safe bets._

The detective sighed, but Hanji had a decent point. Sitting down with Levi to shop for something that interested him would be a good way to work on getting along. _alright, send me the links. and a list of the blends you mentioned._

_Sure thing! How about you and Levi? Are you making any progress?_

Erwin looked up at the dragon, who didn’t seem to notice or care that he was the subject of the man’s attention. The mother from the Hallmark movie had apparently been working on a romance with her male nurse and they were kissing onscreen to a heartwarming crescendo of violins. Levi was watching the scene intently, his expression utterly baffled. Erwin had to act quickly when the dragon turned his head seeking an explanation, feigning a sudden and complete absorption in his phone. There was no way to comfortably explain what that gesture meant, why two people would want to press their faces together in such a manner. He could only imagine how strange it looked to Levi.

_we're getting there_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been making fun of my mom and grandmother for years because they love the Hallmark Channel to a frightening extent, so I'm not going to be able to explain why I suddenly need to watch one of their Christmas movies. "For research" probably won't fly.


	10. Hell's Kitchen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Out of the frying pan and into the fire. Alternatively, Erwin done goofed: the mini-saga.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Mandrippy](http://harmony283.tumblr.com/) is back, but I had to single-handedly wrestle a wild store manager to get her.

Levi didn’t make it far past the kissing. The novelty of television wore off quickly in the face of post-op recovery and that next dose of hydrocodone. Erwin had barely settled back in the chair after getting it for him when he looked over and found all the blankets piled up over Levi’s head, his breathing deep and even. Mike had made an excellent point about the hydrocodone. It did seem to be making the dragon sleep, though it hadn't ever done much for Erwin.

That was the rest of their afternoon. Levi slept beneath the television's warm, holiday glow while Erwin worked on packing his head full of all the dragon information it could hold. He asked Hanji for clarification in a few places and called Grisha to set up Levi's veterinary visit. Both of them agreed that it was best not to try and transport Levi until he settled in a bit more, so Grisha made arrangements to deploy the mobile clinic early the following week. Erwin tried not to ask Mike or Nanaba anything else, knowing they both had their hands full with work. There was no telling with Hanji, who had sessions scheduled all over the place--sometimes late into the evening or early in the morning--but the doctor wasn't shy about telling him to can it, so Erwin didn't worry about the high volume of questions he sent their way.

 _what do you know about dca registration?_ He'd asked last. By the time Hanji had a moment to answer, though, Erwin had gotten up to start dinner. If he was quick and quiet about it, he figured he could scarf something down before Levi woke up and he had to worry about eating in front of him.

 _Too damn much,_ came the answer. Erwin had been afraid it would be something like that. _Why do you ask? Are you already having to swallow their shit I mean negotiate with them politely?_

 _not personally. grisha said he was sending levi’s bloodwork and registration to them after i--_ Erwin had to stop there and look for a more palatable way to say what he needed to tell Hanji next. The thought felt filthy in his head. _\--sign for levi._

Hanji must have seen the lull in his typing, because they guessed correctly what the problem was. _It’s only as true as you want it to be. All that stuff about legal ownership is ultimately just paper and ink. Once you’re finished dealing with the DCA you can define your relationship with Levi however you want to._

 _we don’t have a relationship,_ Erwin replied immediately. _he’s a witness in my protective custody._ Something about that wasn’t quite ringing true on a second reading, though. He felt too defensive about it, too protective, like he was shielding a kernel of doubt to see what it grew into. Erwin didn’t know what Levi was to him, but the detective wasn’t impartial and he didn't see how he could be. After all he’d invested and all he’d seen--the defensive little dragon uncoiling slowly at his coaxing like a wild armadillo--it was impossible for Erwin to keep a businesslike distance. Their situation was uncommon, that was for sure, and it warranted an uncommon approach.

 _Of course you have a relationship!_ Hanji replied. _All forms of connection are technically relationships._

And,

_As far as the DCA goes, your biggest hurdle will be getting them to accept your current living situation. They’re federal, you see, so they can pull your plans apart like ants on a carcass if they get the slightest whiff of anything they don't like. They're already going to be leery of his bloodlines. They'll try to call him unpredictable._

_he is unpredictable_

_We're not going to tell the DCA that. You’re going to have to stress to Levi that he needs to be on his best behavior when they come for the home inspection. His history already puts him on shaky ground. They're looking for reasons to take him away. That's their job._

Erwin stopped with the tip of his knife still poking into the plastic cover on his frozen dinner. _home inspection? they’re going to come into my house?_

 _Probably,_ Hanji answered. _Legally, you consent to it when you sign the ownership papers for Levi, which you’re forced to do if you want to claim Levi, which you’re forced to do if you want to KEEP Levi. It’s all very fucked up, really._

_yeah, i’m starting to get that. and what will they be looking for?_

Erwin finished cutting the venting slits into the plastic cover before Hanji’s reply came through. _Officially? They’re looking around to be sure that your living conditions are appropriate for keeping a dragon. Unofficially, they’re looking around for evidence that you plan to set up an illegal breeding facility or something to that effect._

 _so should i clean out my barn or leave all the junk in it?_ He was only partially joking. Erwin reached up and dropped the frozen meal into the microwave, hoping the sound wouldn’t rouse Levi. Hydrocodone versus noisy kitchen appliance. Which would be the victor?

 _Don’t worry about the visit,_ Hanji texted back. _You have a lovely home. It’s ideal for a dragon to live in. What you need to worry about is convincing them that Levi is both important and docile._ But they started typing again shortly after Erwin lifted the phone to reply, so he waited for them to finish. _Oh. And the obedience training._

_the what_

_It’s required of every dragon signed into a new household._ Moblit and Nanaba both did it, too. That was true, Erwin recalled. They didn’t talk about it much, but he knew that they’d done something like that. He always got the impression that they felt uncomfortable with questions, so he’d always left it alone. The subject rarely came up on its own. _Dragons living in a domestic setting must be able to show documentation that they have passed through a DCA licensed obedience school. You have thirty days from the date on your claim forms to initiate contact with a facility._

 _do they make exceptions?_ Erwin asked immediately. _levi can’t be near other dragons. he can barely be near humans._

_Well, you sure as hell can’t tell the DCA that, either! You’re just going to have to make sure he’s feeling more sociable in thirty days. Although, Erwin. In your case, you won’t want to wait that long._

_that sounds like the ideal thing to do to me._

_It isn’t. The DCA can seize Levi for any reason under the sun before you have that obedience certificate. Once he has that, he’s harder to touch. The only way they could take him from you then is because they have documented proof that he’s a carrier for MARV-d or because he has committed a crime._

They had to continue on in a second message,

_You would still have that court-ordered euthanasia to worry about, but even that would be difficult to push through if Levi can make it through obedience school and prove to a caseworker that his temperament is stable._

And a third,

_At that point, Levi wouldn’t just be a fighting ring champion. He would be a fighting ring champion who has records proving that he has been successfully rehabilitated. With that documentation, you could contest the court order._

The microwave beeped, but Erwin just stood there absently, his mind on a completely different planet.

_that all depends upon whether or not levi can be rehabilitated to such an extent. i can’t imagine him ever being able to tolerate other dragons. humans, maybe._

_He has to,_ Hanji replied. _Unless you can get what you want from him before your thirty days is up and then live with yourself after watching the DCA put him down on your front lawn. You owe him at least an attempt._

Hanji did not pull their punches when they had something important to say. They were right about it though, about all the things that Erwin would owe Levi in exchange for the information he had. He would owe him more than an attempt, but an attempt was all Erwin had to give him. Levi had to be able to save himself, too.

_how do i begin working levi up to obedience school?_

_I’ll come up with a game plan,_ Hanji answered right away. _You’re going to need to start before you think he’s ready. He WON'T be ready. Thirty days is an impossible amount of time to allow for a complete rehabilitation to occur, but it’s long enough to teach him how to fake it._

 _fake being rehabilitated or fake his way through obedience school?_ Erwin turned slowly to retrieve his food as Hanji typed their reply. They were quick on a keypad, but he still had his dinner out of the microwave and onto the counter by the time their message came through.

_Both. You’re going to have to fake obedience school anyway if you still want Levi to be a dragon when they finish with him. Do you really think Mike and I allowed those devolved monkeys to brainwash Nanaba and Moblit?_

_what do they do at dragon obedience? i can't imagine sit and stay is standard._

_No, it's worse than that. Those classes are all about submitting utterly to human authority. It's the same logic they use in prison systems to make inmates behave by stripping them of their individual identities. Only, dragons haven't done anything wrong._

Well. Most dragons, anyway. Technically, what Levi had done by killing Lucille and the others was a crime. It wasn't exactly be viewed as murder because none of the victims had been human, but it was still serious. If the DCA caught wind of it they would say that Levi had done something worth punishing. It wouldn't matter to them that Levi had been taught all his life to kill his own kind. He would be put down like a pitbull that had bitten someone. But Hanji wasn't done.

_The DCA claims that if dragons can be tightly controlled they won't pose any threat to humans. That is why they place such a high degree of importance on those classes. It's a "public safety" issue._

_never mind moblit, i'm surprised they didn't kick YOU out of obedience_

_I was asked to leave two different facilities. It was Moblit who finally asked me to behave so we could get it over with. Bless him._

Despite his rapidly darkening mood, Erwin had to smile. _you two are a public menace._

_I do my best =D Unfortunately I can't say the same for Moblit. He's too sweet to be real._

Erwin put his phone down to attend to the steaming dinner sitting beside him, but when he glanced over to see Hanji's next message he paused.

_Do you intend to enter into the courtship?_

Erwin told himself that he needed a minute to peel the hot plastic top from the container. It was even somewhat true. It had been sitting there, untouched, for a long time at that point. He worked the glue free in increments, letting go every couple centimeters to avoid burning himself.

 _will i need to for all of this to work?_ he asked finally. He didn’t taste the food he put into his mouth. Part of that could have been the food itself--a new brand he’d thought to try, curious to see if it tasted any less like frozen food than the other frozen food out there--but Erwin didn’t think that was the problem.

_No. If you’re going to dismiss him, though, let him know before he decides he wants to pursue you. I believe that if you explain the situation to him, he would stay to save his own life. He’s smart enough to understand his situation and do what he needs to do accordingly. You can save him without having to hurt him._

_how soon do i need to tell him all of this?_

_I wouldn’t let it go much longer than a few more days unless you really can’t decide what to do. But it sounds like you know._

_i do. i don’t mean any offense, but i don’t want a dragon even if it’s just on paper._

_I know, Erwin. You’ve never offended me by believing that._ For a long time, the screen remained inactive like that was the end of Hanji’s reply, but then they added one last question. _Would you date him if he wasn’t a dragon?_

Erwin shoved another bite of tasteless mush into his mouth and chewed on that for a minute. It wasn’t so much that he didn’t know the answer. He did know. He just hadn’t been asked to consider it before. _i don’t know him,_ he told Hanji finally.

 _Isn’t that the point of dating?_ Hanji asked. _It could be real, you know. If he makes it through obedience he has an honest chance at living a normal life. That could be with you._

_that's a can of worms i don't even want to touch right now. all of this is too  complicated on its own._

_You want to know a secret?_ Hanji answered. _I didn't want a dragon either._

 _that situation is different,_ Erwin argued. _you two are made for each other. you're an actual match._

_You don't know Levi. Your words, not mine._

Erwin finished the rest of that meal slowly and he still wouldn’t have been able to tell anyone what it was he’d eaten. He tossed the empty container into the trash and returned to his refrigerator for another of Levi's unidentified organs, thinking that he would have to ask Nanaba at some point what they were. Whatever it was he pulled out, it was thawed, but he would have to run it through the microwave to take the chill off. Erwin set the lid back over the top and tipped the container over his sink to drain the water, still thinking about Hanji's last text. He wasn't going to _date_ his witness. Dragon or not, it was completely unprofessional and once Levi had been signed into his custody it would be worse than that.

The drake hadn't even said half a word to him.

Erwin left Levi's dinner in the microwave, but did not start the timer. He would wake the dragon first, figuring he wouldn't want to eat lukewarm meat. But the sofa was empty when Erwin turned the corner.

"Levi?"

The house was silent.

"Levi?" He called a little louder. He glanced into the dark guest bathroom and it occurred to him that he hadn't pointed this one out to the dragon. The only one he knew about would be upstairs. Erwin had just turned away, prepared to wait in the kitchen for Levi to finish his business, when he heard the weather seal on his front door pop open. He knew it was Levi when he didn't close it behind him, a cold draft following the dragon up the hall and into the living room where he froze in the doorway upon noticing Erwin. He had one of the smaller blankets wrapped around him, leaves caught in the fabric where it trailed the ground behind him.

"You went all the way out to the woods?" Erwin asked him, and he turned to follow the detective's gaze to the leaves caught up in his blanket. "Why?"

The dragon only sniffed, his nose red and runny with the cold, and slid boldly past Erwin like he intended to return to the sofa.

"I have your dinner in the kitchen. And I was about to put another pot of tea on."

Levi changed direction without pausing, passing Erwin a second time on his way into the kitchen. He was so close that the detective could have reached out and brushed him with his fingertips as he passed. Considering the space available to Levi if he wanted to stay out of arm's length, Erwin hoped he'd done it intentionally. Or at least without thinking. He would take the latter option, too. Levi shuffled across the floor shedding a light trail of leaves and blades of grass all the way over to the tall stool at the counter.

"Why do you keep going outside?" Erwin asked him as he sat. "It can't be because you like the cold."

Levi made a visible effort to sit up straighter and stop shivering, but he didn't quite succeed.

 _do dragons have any special outdoor behaviors?_ Erwin asked Hanji as he turned on the microwave and settled in for the short wait.

 _Do humans have any special indoor behaviors?_ The doctor countered.

_why does levi keep going outside, then?_

_I couldn't tell you. Have you asked him?_

_twice,_ Erwin answered as the microwave beeped. _he hasn't spoken to me yet._ The organ was warm to the touch on the outside, but Erwin had to pull it out and slice it in two for the dragon to comfortably eat, so he went ahead and checked the inside as well, lightly touching the back of a finger to the severed end and finding it acceptable. Any more and it could start to cook.

 _Hmm. Not at all?_ Hanji wanted to know.

_he growls a lot._

Deeming the dish acceptable, Erwin passed it along to Levi who, despite being on the threshold of starvation, was remarkably patient, his eyes following Erwin as he worked with the food, but otherwise sitting very still in his seat as he waited. He remained fully in control of himself as he reached calmly for the first half rather than descending upon the plate. Erwin watched all of this thoughtfully while he waited for the kettle to boil and he believed that if Hanji was correct in saying that Levi could be taught to fake a tolerance for other dragons, this boded well for him. He would need that kind of self control.

 _Odd,_ Hanji mused. _Nanaba informed me that the breeding females were speaking and Levi clearly understands you so he should be capable as well. I didn't see any outward indication that his vocal cords have been damaged. If he's not speaking to you yet it's probably by choice. Just give it time. We all deal with trauma in our own ways._

_i've been giving him opportunities to answer me but it isn't a problem if he doesn't. it's his trust i'm after right now_

_That's how I would do it,_ the doctor admitted. _Just keep engaging him, but don't press._

The kettle started smoking lightly and it occurred to Erwin that he still needed to ask Hanji about water temperature and tea. He glanced at the message window sitting open and ready on his phone, but the water was ready and the doctor's reply would take a minute. So, promising himself that he would ask before they ordered any of the good stuff, Erwin fired off a brief affirmative instead and slid his phone to the side so he could pour. This time it was only Levi's cup.

"If you want me to taste this one, you're going to have to let it cool off some. My mouth is only so capable."

Levi snorted softly and held out his hand, taking the cup directly from Erwin and sipping from it pointedly.

"Show off."

Levi's mouth turned upwards. It wasn't exactly a smile, but it wasn't a scowl either.

"When you're finished, do you mind bringing your dishes around to the sink?" Erwin asked, turning in a little pointed action of his own to start the water. "I clean our dishes and put them away after I use them." He lifted one of the cups from earlier in the day to show Levi that there were dishes in the sink and took up the sponge. Levi perked up with interest, craning his neck to watch the detective from where he sat with both of his elbows propped on the counter and the tea suspended between them.

Erwin had never believed that dishes could be interesting--cleaning them even less so. But the way Levi watched him like he'd almost forgotten about the tea in his hands suggested otherwise. It was impossible to predict what the drake would latch onto, though apparently washing dishes was a winner. He looked like he'd get a kick out of the task if Erwin wanted to teach him, but he didn't think it was a great idea to encourage any prolonged periods of standing until the drake had a few more days of recuperation under his belt. Levi was still so worn out. Even sleeping for nine days did not seem to have replenished much of his energy. Perhaps he needed to ask Grisha about that. Erwin didn't have the faintest clue what could be considered 'normal' for a dragon in recovery or how the healing coma had affected him. For all Erwin knew, it might have drawn energy from Levi to devote to healing.

And for all Erwin knew, Levi was still bleeding somewhere into his abdomen.

The drake still bore the mottled bruising across his abdomen and it looked ugly, but it was turning colors like it was healing. There was no telling what lay beneath that, though. The body's complex systems were a near mystery to Erwin and he didn't know if it was possible for new bleeding to hide beneath the old. He watched from his periphery as the drake watched him, shamelessly attentive to Erwin's hands where they moved soap across each dish, scrubbing where necessary, rinsing. He used the spray nozzle a couple of times, which seemed to fascinate Levi.

"It's easier sometimes to reach dishes with the hose," Erwin explained, privately amused by the dragon's interest. "Have you finished with your plate?"

Levi glanced down like he'd forgotten he had dishes of his own in front of him, pushing his stool back from the counter and easing slowly to the floor to bring them around. He hesitated by his seat, his plate in one hand and his cup in the other, but his eyes returned to the sink and his caution relented.

Erwin didn't see exactly how it happened. He could only figure that the bottom edge of Levi's cup did not clear the edge of the counter because he heard the harsh collision of glass and granite right before the whole thing slipped out of Levi's hand and plummeted.

Glass and tea scattered like shrapnel. From the corner of his eye, Erwin saw some of the pieces skid across the floor, slung outward by their own momentum. The dragon flinched like he'd been shot at, taking an involuntary step backwards into the minefield of tea and glass.

 _"Levi,_ stop!"

He did stop. He froze so quickly that he stumbled mid-step and had to catch himself on the edge of the counter, his eyes snapping up to Erwin's face like he expected an attack to come from that quarter. Erwin knew immediately that his tone had been a mistake. His urgency had translated harshly into something sharp and unforgiving that left Levi hunching defensively before him in readiness to lash out, his pupils huge with adrenaline.

"That glass will cut the bottoms of your feet," Erwin explained. His tone had returned to normal, but he could see that Levi didn't trust it. "Don't move, alright? Are you able to reach that bar stool?"

For a moment, Levi didn't look, afraid to take his eyes off of Erwin, though he turned his head just a little so he could see it in his periphery, a scowl beginning to settle over his brow.

"Try to pull it over to you and get off the floor." Levi did look away then. His eyes fell to the glass around him, trying to decide if he believed that the pieces were really that sharp. He stretched his foot out slowly and nudged a piece with his big toe and Erwin simply let him determine for himself whether that quiet tinkle of glass was something that should concern him. Ultimately, Levi leaned over with a quiet huff and hooked the chair with his fingertips, pulling it towards him.

"I'm going to clean this up," Erwin said evenly, trying to ease some of the damage his tone had done. "Stay where you are until I've gotten rid of the glass, if you don't mind. No more bleeding."

Levi nodded exactly twice, his expression blank as he watched Erwin pick his way over to the other end of the kitchen where the laundry room was kept. There was a broom and dustpan wedged between the dryer and the wall, but no empty box available to hold all of the glass that Erwin meant to dispose of. He had to make do with double-bagging the trashcan and carrying it back out to the kitchen.

Erwin didn't think any of the pieces had made it all the way across the kitchen, but there was no sense in taking risks with the soles of anyone's feet. He worked his way from the laundry room back towards Levi, accumulating a dirty little pile of glass and grime as he went. Evidently his kitchen floor hid dirt very well. He thought of his aunt and her good sense and suspected it had been a deliberate choice.

"I'm not angry," he said as he swept. "Hanji stepped on a shard of glass just like this a couple of years ago and they were in the ER for hours waiting for somebody to come and stitch their foot up. Then they had to get a tetanus shot." Erwin looked up at Levi. "Do dragons get tetanus?" He wasn't expecting an answer, so he just continued working, keeping the broom ahead of his own bare feet.

Erwin avoided the tense dragon until he couldn't anymore, making a wide, careful circle around Levi and watching his proximity to both the dragon and the glass underfoot. He stopped a minute to lean against the counter, facing Levi with as open and harmless a posture as he could manage. "I need to come over there," the detective warned Levi. "Only for the glass. I promise not to touch you."

The drake searched his face for a long time before he slowly gave his permission--a reluctant nod.

Still, Erwin held his breath as he leaned in to sweep around Levi's chair, unable to get a good read on the dragon's mood. He could see that Levi was troubled, but the precise cause was unclear. Levi leaned away from him the barest fraction of an inch, but there was no growling, no bleeding involved. They were on such shaky ground, the peace between them so delicate and new.

"Show me your feet. I'm not going to touch them. I'm just looking for glass."

Erwin kneeled in front of Levi, balancing on his toes with a hand braced against the side of his kitchen cabinets. If the dragon wanted to kick him in the face just then he was in an excellent position to do so. All the drake did, though, was lift each dark foot at Erwin's request, allowing the man to inspect them for tiny splinters of glass or blood. As promised, Erwin never touched him. He didn't have to. Levi's feet were clear of any debris and miraculously there was no bloodshed. It was a day for the record books.

"Very good."

Levi's eyes moved reluctantly over Erwin's shoulder to the growing pile of glass, like he didn't want to look at it and couldn't help himself. Erwin did touch him then, tapping  lightly on his chilly ankle with the back of his knuckle so that he jumped, his attention returning quickly to Erwin.

"It was an accident. Now I just have a little more room in my cabinet for the souvenir mugs Hanji won't stop giving me." Levi didn't seem to know what to make of that, so Erwin added. "It's only a cup. We'll clean it up and forget about it."

Erwin stood slowly and drew the pile away.

"I think I have a whole mug here," he said after a minute. "It's safe to step down."

Levi did slide off the barstool, but he remained precisely where he landed, watching Erwin kneel again by the trash can to sweep his pile into the dustpan. It was awkward work, requiring Erwin to brace the handle against his shoulder so he could hold the broom with one hand and the pan with the other. He managed to get a lot of it in the first pass, but he would have to reassemble the dregs before he could try again. But the dragon stepped forward as he was preparing to do just that and reached out for the handle, pulling it towards himself until Erwin relinquished the broom to Levi's insistence.

The detective wondered if he looked as surprised as he felt. He raised his head to look into Levi's face, but the dragon was busy adjusting his grip on the handle with a sort of determined intensity, the long piece of wood seeming unwieldy in his hands. He touched the bristles to the floor, dragging the broom towards himself the way he'd seen Erwin do.

"Thank you."

The dragon paid him no attention, moving to accommodate the broom as he worked the scattered pieces of glass back into a tidy pile and pushed them into Erwin's dustpan, his speed and confidence increasing with every pass of the broom.

"Now the tea." Erwin stood and tipped the last load of debris into the trash, tapping the dustpan against the side to ensure that none of the tiny pieces still clung to the plastic. He wasn't sure if Levi was feeling bad about breaking the cup or if he was afraid Erwin really would punish him or neither of the above. It could have been sheer interest on Levi's part--the same sort of interest that would have driven him to try washing the dishes if Erwin had given him half a chance. Like a child who had never seen the inside of a sweet shop, Levi wanted to try everything. Erwin could see him experimenting, deciding what he liked and what he didn't about the strange civilized world he'd found himself a part of. He was still feeling out the rules, trying settle in--or decide if he wanted to.

Erwin dampened a couple of folded paper towels and passed them to the drake. "We're hunting for spilled tea," he let the dragon know. "Get anything you can reach, but don't bend over." He wet another couple of paper towels for himself, taking a few dry ones as well and letting them flutter to the floor at ground zero where most of the tea was concentrated. With his foot he directed the paper towels, tracing over all the wet little contrails they'd created by dragging glass along the tile with Erwin's broom. Levi moved back and forth between cabinets like the world's slowest pinball, catching little droplets of tea and swiping them up before moving on to the next place he spotted. Every change of position seemed to reveal a new spot to clean as tea caught the light and glimmered. They would likely be finding sticky places for weeks.

Levi was still searching long after Erwin gave up and tossed his paper towel collection so he could pull another cup from the cabinet. Into that went the remainder of the tea from the pot, a little sugar. The drake seemed stunned, looking up at Erwin like he was insane for entrusting him with a cup just like the one he'd broken not a handful of minutes ago. Erwin only shrugged. "I figure the odds of breaking two in the same evening are slim. You better take advantage of statistics when you can." He slid the mug towards Levi and returned to the sink to wash the plate that had been overlooked in all the commotion.

"I microwave the sponge every so often to kill anything growing in it," Erwin told Levi as he settled in at the edge of the counter with the cup of tea grasped between his palms like he'd caught a chill. The blanket he'd brought from the living room was draped loosely around him like an antique traveling cape, his eyelids heavy with exhaustion as he ran gradually out of steam.

"If you want to sit down, I could just narrate for you." Levi shook his head. "Okay, but if you get any paler I'm packing you off to the sofa."

The dragon snorted like, _Good luck._

"It's also a good idea to bleach the sink on occasion. I dilute mine with water to a fifty-fifty ratio. It's a little stronger, I think, than the label recommends, but it feels more like it's working." Erwin reached under the sink to retrieve his tub of bleach and his diluting container, which was really just a repurposed and well-used whipped cream tub.

"Bleach isn't for everyday cleaning," Erwin explained as he measured out each component of his solution and tipped it into the container. "It's very strong, so I only use it when something is probably too dirty for soap. The sink, for example." The detective held up a coarse-bristled scrub brush as well--something he reserved specifically for the basins of the sinks. Levi had drifted forward as Erwin presented, his eyes all lit up like he'd just been told that heaven was real and he got to go there. He picked up the tub of diluted bleach and put his nose over it, his small nostrils flaring.

"Don't do anything with that until I come back down here," Erwin told him. "I'm going to get you something to cover up with so you don't get bleach on you. Levi. _No unsupervised bleaching."_

The drake scowled at him, but pointedly set the container aside. He crossed his arms over his small chest.

"I'll only be a second," Erwin promised. "Then we can bleach every surface in the kitchen if you want to."

Levi's expression said, _You aren't back yet?_

 _i have never seen a person so honestly fascinated by cleaning,_ Erwin texted Hanji on his way up the stairs. _so far he's watched me wash our dishes, helped me sweep, and now he wants to bleach the sink. bleach the sink like that's something anyone enjoys doing._

Erwin left his phone on top of the dresser so he could pull open the bottom drawer where he kept old t-shirts for yard work and cleaning. Before he could go to pull one out, though, the phone buzzed from the top of his dresser.

_Maybe he's discovering a hobby._

_i hope not._ Having to sign those papers that Grisha was bringing him would be bad enough--Erwin had taken to calling them custody papers like this was an adoption proceeding rather than a claim of ownership. Doing so knowing that Levi would be performing menial household chores on top of being his legal property was too damn much.

_If that's what he wants to do though_

_it still feels wrong_

Hanji looked like they were typing a longer response, so Erwin kneeled to riffle gently through his collection of roughly folded shirts, searching for one of the smaller ones in the hopes it might fit Levi. Maybe he would even decide he liked clothes.

Wishful thinking, probably. He heard his phone buzz against the top of the dresser, but ignored it until he found one of his old police academy shirts. It was still large by Levi's standards, but it was a little tight on Erwin, soft and faded by years of going through the wash on a hot water cycle. He'd never worn it in public for the same reason he'd never worn any of his high school t-shirts--it just struck him as dorky--but it was a good yard shirt.

 _Nonsense,_ Hanji's text read. _If Levi enjoys scrubbing the inside of your kitchen sink that's his own business. Nobody can come into your house and tell you what that means to either of you. Only you and Levi get to decide that._

And,

_I've heard a rumor that sometimes people genuinely enjoy cleaning. Just because we haven't met anyone like that yet doesn't mean it isn't a real phenomenon._

_i think you mean natural disaster_

_Phenomenon_

_no_

_PhENOMenoN_

Something crashed to the floor in the kitchen.

Erwin was down the stairs so quickly he was still trying to place the sound as he bolted through the living room, certain that Levi had hit his physical limitations abruptly and violently. He could only pray to every available deity that the dragon hadn't broken anything or, god(s) forbid, hit his head. He did find an alarming scene when he skidded to a stop in the kitchen doorway, but Levi wasn't unconscious. Actually, it took a minute for the situation to even compute.

The whole room smelled like bleach, for starters. Erwin's tile was wet with it--the overturned whipped cream tub still rolling gently across the floor until it lost momentum and got caught up in the grout, shivering to a stop. The first and most obvious conclusion was that Levi must have reached out as he fell and knocked the container from the edge as he went down, but that didn't explain Levi himself. He was on the floor too, unsteadily balanced on his hands and knees as his body wracked with hard, violent coughs. The dragon's hair looked damp, his bare skin glistening like he'd just climbed out of the shower. But it took the saliva for things to really click, seeing the pinkish tinge to the liquid that Levi was choking on, trying to get back up.

"Did you _swallow_ bleach?"

Levi didn't answer, of course. His eyes were something frightening, swiveling up to Erwin with their red and bloodshot corneas. They watered involuntarily at the chemical smell dispersing into the air around him, squinting myopically at Erwin like he'd just been peeling an onion. The corners of his mouth were raw and irritated, leaving little doubt as to whether or not the dragon had just sampled his cleaning supplies.

Erwin moved too quickly for Levi to really consider lashing out. The dragon scrabbled feebly at Erwin as he took him under the arms and lifted him like a child, effortlessly pulling him to his feet in a single motion. It wasn't aggression, but alarm that had him trying to grasp at the man's shirt. He was disoriented and dizzy, trying to get a grip on something steady, but Erwin didn't give him much of a chance to attach himself. The detective whirled him around in front of the sink and got an arm around his chest, manhandling him over to the edge when his knees tried to buckle.

"How much did you swallow?" The detective demanded, his voice snapping with swift authority. "Levi!"

The dragon made a low, keening sound in his throat, but he choked on it, the muscles in his back contracting against Erwin's chest as he coughed. "If you're ever going to speak, now is the time. Did you swallow anything or was it only in your mouth?"

But Erwin wasn't sure that Levi could answer him if he wanted to. His mouth probably felt like it was sloughing apart, his nerve endings overwhelmed. Erwin hoisted Levi where he had been slipping, forced to pin him to the edge of the counter with his thigh and hip as he reached around to turn the faucet on full blast and push the dragon's head down into the sink.

"Open your mouth," he called over the water.

It was like a switch flipped. Levi's knees gave out on him entirely, his body pitching forward as he overbalanced and came close to hitting his head on the sink. He would have if Erwin's reflexes hadn't kicked in at the last second and caught him. Every muscle that had just been steel beneath Levi's skin went soft and pliable all at once and suddenly the detective found himself with a lot of dead weight in his arms--sort of in his arms.

"Levi?" He could hear the dread in his own voice, certain that the drake was gone, that he'd passed out either from exhaustion or from the bleach he'd probably swallowed. Erwin saw himself urgently phoning Grisha for a second emergency visit when he leaned around to look at Levi and found his eyes open and unfocused, his expression slack. And that was when Erwin realized exactly how he'd gotten Levi's head into the sink.

His palm was resting solidly against the back of the dragon's neck, his fingers still gripping him firmly.

_"Shit."_

Erwin let go of Levi's nape like he'd caught fire, cursing again softly as he gave the dragon a gentle shake, trying to bring him out of the trance before bleach corroded his insides or something equally as gruesome. "Shit, I'm sorry. I didn't realize where I had you. Levi." It was taking a long time, considering his hand had only been on Levi for a few seconds. Surely it wouldn't take him _fifteen_ minutes like the book suggested. He wasn't sure how much bleach Levi had consumed, if they even had fifteen minutes to spare. His phone was still upstairs, sitting on the dresser where he'd left it in his haste to get back down to Levi. Useless. "Levi. Hey."

That pink saliva at the corners of Levi's lips was more than a little concerning. Erwin wanted those chemicals out of Levi's mouth, where they were clearly making his gums bleed, the insides of his cheeks, other soft tissues. The lining of his throat? His stomach? Erwin wouldn't risk spraying water into the dragon's mouth while he was unresponsive like this. His throat would be slack too, slow to swallow. He'd choke. So Erwin wet his hands and went to work on Levi's face while he waited, quickly trying to flush the delicate skin around his eyes and nose, his mouth.

Levi twitched once and that was all the warning Erwin got before the dragon was back, grabbing roughly for Erwin's wrist and dragging the hand with the spray hose towards his face. No one had to tell him that he needed to rinse. Levi was already on top of that, quick to open up and let the water chase every remnant of chlorine from his mouth even as he coughed weakly into the spray. "Drink as much as you can," Erwin told him after a moment. "The bleach in your stomach needs to be diluted."

The dragon did not react immediately. He sagged there with his sides heaving and let water run over his tongue for long enough that Erwin thought he was going to be ignored, but then the dragon took a small, feeble swallow, tensing against Erwin as he gagged.

"Try not to vomit," the detective urged him. "The bleach will do more damage coming up, so try to keep it down."

The dragon coughed, taking another, deeper swallow with similar results. Erwin was already supporting most, if not all of his weight at that point, leaning into the dragon and using the sink to help hold him up so that his hands were free to reach down to Levi’s abdomen. He’d heard enough hospital stories from his coworkers to know that abdominal stitches and vomiting did not a happy mixture make. So Erwin pressed his palms gently to either side of the incision and eased them towards each other so that Levi was supported if he couldn’t keep the watery bleach down.

"I'm only keeping your skin from pulling," Erwin promised him. "I'm sorry if it hurts, but it's better than splitting your glue."

Levi didn't have the energy to protest even if he wanted to. He actually had one of his hands down in the bottom of the sink, holding himself up and gripping Erwin's wrist hard enough with the other to make the detective’s fingers tingle. He was far from steady, though, quivering like a hummingbird and his body tensing at intervals with forcibly controlled retching. His elbow could go at any minute, but he continued to choke down water until it was clear he could not physically continue. At that point he drew away and rested his forehead against the partition between sinks, taking a moment to just stop and breathe. Erwin gave it to him, waiting until he felt the dragon's respiration rate even out before he spoke.

"Levi, I know you're tired, but we need to get the rest of this bleach off you." _Us,_ Erwin mentally corrected. The shirt he wore had undeniably just become a yard shirt. Probably his pants, too.

The dragon moved so quickly that Erwin was on his ass in the middle of his kitchen floor before it occurred to him that Levi had just knocked him back and whirled to kick the detective's legs out from under him in one attempt. Levi couldn't quite muster up the energy for a decent scowl, swaying unsteadily over Erwin with one hand on the sink to keep him upright, but the spray nozzle in his other hand cost very little energy to use and so, his gray eyes snapping with a sort of depleted fury, Levi pulled the trigger on Erwin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know how many of you have gotten bleach into your mouths. Most people are smart enough to avoid that. I had the dubious pleasure in college while I was sterilizing an aquarium and I thought it would be a great idea to get into the bath tub and siphon bleach from a bowl into the tub. You have to get those things going using suction, which in my case required using my mouth. Levi's reaction in this chapter is not overrated. Luckily I was already right there in the bath tub and I was able to turn on the water and get my mouth rinsed. The exact feeling is hard to describe. It was cool and refreshing for less than a second and then it felt like my whole mouth was a gaping wound. I really thought I was going to the hospital. _No unsupervised bleaching._


	11. Dirt Don't Hurt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the aftermath of their bleach incident, Levi and Erwin reevaluate their relationship.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Mandible](http://harmony283.tumblr.com/) done the beta. Thanks some more! =D

Erwin's spine was more than ready to embrace its retirement years. He’d be attending that party early if he and Levi kept this up for much longer, his coworkers sneaking him bites of his own farewell cake as he lay there in a hospital bed wearing a body cast. They would have to make it with one of those special brands of dragon-grade flour from Hanji’s book because Levi would probably be sharing the room with him. Erwin’s thoughts spun like an antique movie reel as he stumbled to his feet, his tailbone doing an awful lot of complaining for a thing that small. What was it Hanji had called it the other night? Coccyx?

The detective slipped his way across the kitchen floor, too quick to be cautious and too anxious to care. He had to catch himself once on the counter and then again on the door frame before he hit the living room at an ugly, slow-motion sprint.

Levi was leaving and Erwin could hardly blame him. If he understood Hanji's book correctly--and he was pretty sure there had been no mistake--it was essentially assault, what he'd just done to the dragon. Had their positions been reversed, Erwin was sure he’d be straight out the door. And the decisive trajectory of Levi's shuffle suggested that was exactly where he was headed.

"Levi, wait for a second."

Erwin turned the corner and looked down the empty hallway at the front door--still closed. Levi would have left it open and Erwin hadn't heard it close anyway--not since he'd closed it himself earlier that evening.

"Levi?"

Erwin found the drake scowling at him from the middle of the living room sofa, wearing the same deeply affronted look as a freshly bathed cat. “I’m sorry,” he found himself saying immediately. Levi looked like he wanted to go, his posture shifty and agitated like he couldn’t decide if he should get back up or not, but he didn’t growl at Erwin when he moved deeper into the room. He let the detective come all the way up to the opposite side of the coffee table before he started tensing, but Erwin only sat himself down on the floor right there across from Levi, looking solemnly into his face. “I know what I did incorrectly,” he admitted. “I just finished reading about it in Hanji’s book.”

Erwin reached up like he was going to rub his face, before he remembered that he probably still had bleach on him and he paused just shy of his eyes. He certainly still had that chemical reek to him--unless Levi just smelled that strong. Erwin wouldn’t doubt anything at that point. “I don’t want you to think I would do something like that intentionally. Not if you weren’t trying to kill someone. I saw the blood from your mouth.” That had been the ongoing theme of the evening, it seemed. _Erwin just reacted._ He had demonstrated his quick and accurate response to a crisis, his ability to process and resolve a dangerous situation--involving humans. But Levi didn’t fit with his training. He hadn’t ever belonged to a unit that dealt with hostile dragons. He’d encountered them on the job, but never in a context that could have prepared him for Levi.

Erwin had a feeling that dragon dispatch would have had their hands full with Levi themselves.

Right then, though, the drake looked about ready for a long nap. He was listening to Erwin, his scowl easing by degrees as he thought about the apology that was on offer, but his exhaustion dulled those reactions and made them difficult to read.

"We need to get that bleach off of you," Erwin said. "It will burn your skin like it burned the inside of your mouth."

Levi looked down at himself like he expected to see his skin dropping off, reaching up and touching the tender area around his incision. It was pink and irritated-looking in places, but he was in no immediate danger of sustaining long term injuries. All the same, Erwin didn't like the idea of bleach sitting directly on that glue. "Skin is more durable than the inside of your mouth," Erwin told him. "It won't hurt right away, but we shouldn't leave it. Do you need help with the stairs?"

Levi gave a stubborn shake of the head, but he stood without protest, dragging himself over to the foot of the stairs with an air of steely determination about him. He would probably make it. If Erwin had learned anything about Levi it was how much control he had over his body’s need to stop and take a breather. The drake could push himself farther than Erwin had seen any living thing go--farther than Erwin thought physically possible. The detective was _still_ waiting for Levi to hit his limit. He kept expecting it, kept worrying about it, but it never really happened.

“I’m going to be right behind you in case you fall.”

Levi glowered, but Erwin simply reached around him to place his hand on the rail. “This isn’t negotiable,” he said. “If you fall, you’re going down this entire flight of steps and in your condition there’s no way you’re getting out of that without a visit from Grisha. Begin when you’re ready.”

They stared each other down for a long time, neither willing to relent. The eye contact was beginning to get a bit ridiculous when Levi finally released a shaky breath and turned, seeing that Erwin was not going to let that one lie. The detective had little doubt that Levi’s expression could have melted the paint from his walls.

Their progress was slow. Erwin thought it must be related to the pride thing that Nanaba had mentioned. There were a lot of traits Levi did not share with his species and Erwin could see that much already, but the detective was also fairly certain that pride was one of the traits he did have in common with his kin. It was important to Levi that he maintain his independence. He seemed determined to take care of himself, to carry his own weight, even when it was unnecessary or detrimental for him to do so. Erwin could understand it, but it did make Levi the worst kind of patient.

By the time they reached the second floor, Levi was using the steps in front of him to help hold himself up. All the same, he straightened slowly at the top, ignoring Erwin’s suggestion that he rest, and shuffled back towards the guest room he’d first woken up in. He did pause just outside of Erwin’s room, his fingers gripping the door frame so hard that they turned white at the joints. It looked like exhaustion to Erwin at first, the way his spine bent ever so slightly as he stood there shaking like he’d stopped to breathe, but then the detective saw his eyes moving curiously over the bed and the old steamer trunk at its foot, the open dresser drawer. His ribs expanded as he took a deep breath in.

Was he _smelling_ Erwin’s room?

“That’s where I sleep,” the detective explained, unsure of how else to address the drake’s curiosity. Levi just looked over his shoulder at him like, _No shit, Sherlock,_ and spared one last interested glance for the master bedroom before his spine straightened minutely and he crossed the hall to his own, leaving Erwin to follow more slowly. He had no idea how to begin interpreting all of that, so he shelved it for the moment. They had more urgent matters to settle.

“Go into the bathroom. There,” Erwin pointed to the room in question, allowing the drake to precede him. He walked right past the light switch like he didn't know it was there, then jumped when Erwin flipped it behind him. Had he been using the toilet in the dark? Lord Jesus, the things he didn’t realize he needed to show Levi. The list was a hundred miles long and most of it was redacted. “Use this switch for light. Up is on, down is off.” He flipped it again just to demonstrate. “The other is the ventilation fan, which you use for showers and for long periods of quality time spent with the toilet.”

Levi frowned, so Erwin demonstrated that switch as well with the warning, “It’s going to be loud,” though Levi flinched a little anyway. “I’ll turn it on after the water is going and it’ll be drowned out some. This is the bathtub.” He reached past Levi to pull the curtain back, revealing the large basin to Levi’s curious eyes. Levi had to lean against the tank of the toilet so he could look around the man as he explained. “This is the way you clean yourself without needing to call poison control afterwards. The tub and curtain keep water off the floor, so always pull the curtain closed behind you. I’m about to turn it on. This will be loud, too.”

Erwin pushed the tap all the way over towards hot, explaining as he went that it warmed up faster that way, but would get very hot so Levi would have to adjust it once the water heated. He was careful not to leave any of that information out. The dragon probably wouldn’t scald easily, but Erwin had resolved to give information as completely as he could to avoid any further incidents like the bleach. “Go ahead and climb in,” he suggested as he felt the water begin to heat and flipped it over to a good midpoint. “Hotter is left, colder is right.”

Levi moved for the tub as soon as Erwin was out of his way. He stepped carefully over the lip, his toes curling in the hot water with a small hiss of indrawn breath. It took him a moment to move forward and of course he pushed the tap back towards the far left as he’d seen Erwin do. Erwin’s water heater was going to take a real beating.

“Normally, people shower standing up, but in your case I would sit.”

Levi was fine with that. It got him closer to the scalding water where it poured from the tap. He could lean forward and hold his arms under it as Erwin spoke, his eyes half-closing as watched Erwin angle the shower head farther up. It wouldn’t come bursting out over Levi that way, passing harmlessly over his head and hitting the back wall. “To get the shower going, you pull up on this. That transfers the water from the bottom tap to the shower head.” Levi followed every action with his eyes, looking a little dazed by all of the information. The water shut off abruptly, lulling briefly before it relocated itself to the shower head and the dragon almost gave himself whiplash with the speed at which his head jerked back to look at it. “I’m going to fix the angle,” Erwin warned him. “You may need to duck your head forward a little.”

Erwin nudged the shower head back down in small increments, giving Levi a minute to readjust until everything lined up the way it needed to. The water grazed the tops of the dragon’s shoulder blades and missed the back of his head for the most part, but for a moment, Erwin thought that he had actually burned Levi. The way he jerked forward, taking a sharp, shuddery breath in and holding it as his hands hit the bottom of the tub to support his weight--it looked almost like pain. But the moment passed and Levi sank back into it quickly, chasing the heat. The next breath he took was worse, shakier, almost like a quiet sob, though nothing appeared to be wrong. To Erwin, it looked like the opposite. Levi's lips parted in a sigh, his toes curling in the bottom of the tub as he shivered the last of the chill off him.

Levi turned his head back into the spray, allowing the water to run through his dark hair and over his scalp as his eyes pinched shut, his next breath hitching discernibly in his chest. There were small tremors running through him despite the heat, his mind and body completely overcome with the experience. His cheeks were wet, catching spray off the main stream of water and growing damp. Maybe it was all water from the shower, but Levi's breathing made Erwin wonder.

“Are you alright?” the detective asked him after a moment, moving from the seat of the toilet to the floor beside the tub so he was more on eye level with Levi. “Do I need to call Grisha about your stomach?”

The drake shook his head slowly, unusually subdued. He did not look at Erwin, again with those small traces of vulnerability. Why Levi still allowed it, Erwin couldn't guess.

“You would tell me if I did?”

Levi nodded.

“Okay. I’m going to trust you.” Levi squinted an eye open and they did seem more liquidy than the detective was accustomed to, too bright even with the heavy shroud of steam between them.

Erwin reached for one of the bottles on the edge of the tub and flipped the top open, noting that Levi's eyes followed him lazily, his body too loose to tense. “I’m going to show you the soap and then I’ll leave you to it. This one is for your hair. I usually work from the top down, but that’s my personal preference. Here, hold out your hand.”

Erwin turned the bottle over Levi’s waiting palm and let a generous amount of shampoo flow out of the container. “You don’t need to swallow any of this either. It will get you clean, but it’s only for skin and hair.” Levi nodded, leaning forward to slather the soap over his head. He seemed to know what to do without needing instruction, working his fingers down to the scalp until he had himself a full head of suds. “Close your eyes when you rinse. If you get any of this into them, it won’t kill you but it will sting, so just flush with water and you’ll be okay. Shampoo isn’t nearly as harsh as bleach. And it smells better.”

Levi seemed to agree. He liked rosemary and mint about the same as he liked the mint and eucalyptus hand soap downstairs. It was a wonder, really, that he hadn't eaten that. The dragon had lost interest in taste-testing the cleaning products, though, contenting himself with breathing deeply and experiencing it with his nose instead.

Erwin pulled the matching container towards them and opened that over Levi’s palm once he was finished rinsing. “This is conditioner. It helps with tangles and it makes your hair soft. If you’re not sure which is which, this is the one that feels more slippery.” He watched Levi rub his fingers together experimentally before he added it to his hair. “A lot of people will let the conditioner sit while they wash something else or shave or whatnot, but you can rinse it right out, too. That last container is for your body. Use it on all your skin, but don’t get that in your eyes or mouth either. Also don’t snort it,” Erwin added as an afterthought just in case. “Or put it into your ears or rectum. Just use it on visible surfaces. That’s a good rule. No openings.”

Levi nodded slowly, so Erwin stood, certain that he was forgetting something that would make Levi bleed or bruise or vomit. He hesitated in the bathroom doorway, mentally reviewing his presentation and finding nothing that he missed. “I’ll get you a towel to dry off with,” he decided finally. “I’m stepping into the other room.” He had some large ones in his own bathroom that he preferred. The ones in Levi’s were the regular size, transferred to the guest bathroom when Erwin found that he liked being engulfed by his towels.

As he stepped across the hall, though, something occurred to him. He could hear Levi’s bath water running through the walls. He could hear the shower running from his own room--deeper even than that. He could hear it from his bathroom. He could have heard it just as easily from below, where the pipes flowed downwards through the wall. He’d never really questioned how quiet the house had been. He was so used to living alone that the normal sounds of another person living there hadn’t registered--or in this case, their absence hadn't registered. As Erwin pulled a towel from the closet in his own bathroom, he tried to remember if he had ever once heard the toilet flush.

The strange trips outside--all the way out to the woods where he would have some privacy--the way Levi had looked around the bathroom like he’d never been inside of it before. It clicked then that he probably hadn’t. He had been using the toilet outside.

“Levi,” Erwin tried as he returned to the other room. He stalled a little, holding the towel up for the dragon to look at and leaving it wordlessly on the tank of the toilet. “All those times you left the house … have you been using the restroom in my yard?”

Levi just looked at him like he couldn’t tell if Erwin was being serious or not.

“It’s an honest question.”

Frowning in confusion, obviously unable to understand why such question was even being asked, Levi nodded.

“Okay,” Erwin sighed. “You’ve had a long day. We can address that later.” Levi had no idea what to make of that promise, seeing no other place where he would go to relieve himself. Erwin distinctly remembered pointing out the bathroom to him, telling him which item was the toilet, but they hadn't really gone over in detail how to use it. The drake would probably be needing a tutorial on that as well, so Erwin just added, “It’s alright. We’ll talk about it in a little while. For now just take as long as you need to. Use as much soap as you need to. Just get all that bleach off you.” He reached up to pull the curtain a little farther closed. “If the water starts getting cold, that’s normal. Just keep pushing the lever left until you run out. Then the tank is depleted and you won’t get much more out of it for a while. I’ll be right outside if you need me.”

The very first thing Erwin did was return to his room for his phone. He was quick about it, wanting to return to Levi as quickly as possible. With the track record they had so far, the drake would probably manage to drown in there if he hadn't already. As the line rang out to Hanji, though, he kneeled again by the bottom drawer of the dresser to collect the police academy shirt he’d dropped there in his haste to get down the stairs to Levi.

“Hi, Erwin. What’s on your mind?”

Erwin paused. He hadn’t even spoken yet, giving Hanji no tone to read. “How do you know there’s something on my mind?”

“You called me. You only call when there’s a lot to say or something you need to know immediately. Otherwise, you text.”

That was probably true. “It’s been too long a night to type everything out,” he agreed. “Do you have a minute?”

“I’m done with sessions for the day. Moblit and I were about to make dinner, but it can wait a little while.” Hanji could tell there was something wrong. They’d fallen into the slower tone they used when they were getting ready to function in their capacity as a psychologist. So Erwin rehashed the story on the return trip to Levi’s room, where he sat down at the foot of the bed to wait on him. The water was still running in the bathroom and billows of steam poured from the cracked doorway. The detective had forgotten to turn on the vent, so he was glad he’d been liberal with the size of the door crack. He watched the heavy steam twist in the air as the words flowed.

Hanji remained silent through the whole telling, waiting for Erwin to finish without once interrupting, even with the usual listening noises like, _hmm_ and _uh huh._ Only when Erwin ended with, “And that’s about it,” did the doctor let out a low, anguished moan.

“That’s a nightmare, Erwin. How did you get to be so bad at dragons?”

“It certainly isn’t for lack of exposure,” the detective noted, thinking of the closeness that he shared with Nanaba and Moblit. “This is just--”

“An unusual situation, I know. Nanaba and Moblit are psychologically healthy. You don’t need to be careful with them. Levi will need to be treated much differently. Is he okay, by the way? Bleach isn’t easy on the soft tissues.”

“He says he doesn’t need to see a doctor and that seems to be true. I had him swallow as much water as he could.”

Hanji made a soft sound of agreement into the phone. “That was the first thing I heard you do correctly all evening. If he’s saying he’s alright and he’s acting okay, it probably isn’t a case for Grisha, but I would keep an eye on him. How is he acting towards you, though? Grabbing the back of a dragon’s neck without their consent is a pretty serious offense.”

“I know,” Erwin sighed. “I read that section in your book, but in the moment I didn’t even think about it. I just saw him choking and bent him over the sink.”

“Did you explain that to him?”

“I tried. I’m not sure yet if he’s accepted it, though. Since he discovered my hot water heater he’s had other things on his mind.”

“No,” Hanji told him. “He wouldn’t. Try to imagine someone grabbing your dick without consent--just reaching over and taking it. That's the closest thing you would be able to relate to, I think. If somebody did that to you, it's not something you would forget about within a couple minutes simply because you got distracted by something else. If Levi thought you did it on purpose there would be no way he would let you near him. And in his case, he would probably try to kill you.”

“He turned the dish hose on me.” Erwin wasn’t sure about what followed. Levi _hadn’t_ really wanted Erwin near him, but that was his general outlook on things anyway. The fact was, he was still letting Erwin close(ish) to him without trying to hurt him. He hadn’t even growled at him. He certainly hadn’t tried to kill him unless he thought Erwin would melt like the Wicked Witch.

“Turning the dish hose on you was the least of what he could have done to you. He isn’t an idiot, you know. I’m sure he was aware of the predicament he was in and has processed your response accordingly. He knows how bad he was hurting.”

"So instead of somebody grabbing his dick in a dark alleyway it was like somebody grabbing his dick at a doctor's office."

"Close enough, I guess. If the doctor grabbed it without warning and then explained after the fact why it was medically necessary. Still disturbing but you're less likely to sue."

“ _Why_ the medical necessity, though? Why would he swallow bleach in the first place?” Erwin asked. “It isn’t like dragon catnip, is it?”

“Not that I’ve observed,” Hanji answered. “I’ve been wondering about it myself since you told that part of the story because it strikes me as such a strange thing to do. Nothing about bleach smells appetizing. I don’t think it smells appetizing to dragons, either--yeah, Moblit is shaking his head. So why? What exactly did you say about it, Erwin?”

Erwin thought back on it, trying to remember what words he’d used to describe it to Levi. “I just told him what it was. I warned him how strong it was and said it wasn’t for everyday use. It should only be used when something is too dirty for soap.”

“And then he swallowed it.”

“Yes, that was all I--” Erwin lost the rest of his sentence to the sudden vicious twist his insides had performed.

“Too dirty for soap,” Hanji said quietly. _“Jesus._ He was trying to clean himself out.”

Erwin just had to sit there for a second.

Looking back on it, that was the moment when he truly committed to avoiding Levi’s death. It had been a vague and formless notion--some distant hope that maybe somehow things would work out. The idea had not been steel in him. It had not been his final, ultimate priority. That had been the fighting ring, bringing down the leader and making sure he never touched another dragon again. Dragons _like_ Levi, not Levi himself. They were dragons that Erwin had never met, that may not even exist yet. The one dragon he could save was right there in the next room trying to wash away a lifetime of psychological filth before the hot water heater gave out on him and Erwin had been thinking, _one for hundreds._ He’d been okay with that, comfortable with the thought that it may be necessary for Levi to die, that the court may order it in spite of his testimony. Erwin’s earlier resolve to _try_ for a solution had been quid pro quo, because he owed it to Levi, not because he was firmly resolved to save him. He never really thought it likely.

But Levi would not be killed. If Erwin had to drag him to Siberia himself in a little red wagon, he would do that.

“I’m going to have a serious talk with Levi about his life expectancy,” Erwin resolved. He wasn’t talking about the bleach and he wasn’t sure if Hanji knew that, but it didn’t matter. Erwin knew where he was going. “Thank you for the insight.”

“I’ll leave the volume turned up on my phone,” Hanji promised. “Call if you need me. And I’ll talk to Moblit over dinner. If you need anything while I’m in a session, call him. One of us will always be available.”

“I hope that won’t be necessary.”

“I do, too, but it’s better not to need such a system and have it set up than the other way around. We probably should have done something like this to begin with. Have a good night, Erwin. I need to go and … hold Moblit for a little while.”

"Good night."

Erwin let his hand drop without bothering to disconnect the line.

It struck him then that Levi’s unwashed body had occupied the guest bed for over nine days and he was up in a second, yanking the blankets off the bed in a sudden flurry of motion. He sorted as he peeled each layer free, throwing the top blankets into the chair by the window and smell-testing the middle ones, deeming a couple acceptable and tossing the rest into the floor. The sheets followed quickly, stripped free of the mattress until the whole thing was bare. The pillows got the same treatment, each one stripped mercilessly of its case and separated--pillows to the chair and cases to the floor.

There was a fresh set of sheets in the hall closet, but they were intended for Erwin’s larger bed. It didn’t matter. He threw them over Levi’s mattress and tucked in all the extra, working with a speed and ferocity that he’d never once applied towards something as simple as changing the sheets. When the comforter was pulled up and the pillows situated, he began piling the top blankets back on. There were only a few that didn’t need washing--just the topmost layer--so he went next to the linen closet in his bathroom and produced the ancient heating pad that had come with the house, plugging it in and shoving it somewhere roughly around the area where Levi’s feet would end up. The shower was still running when he stopped and Erwin thought to go in and check on Levi, hoping he wasn’t scrubbing himself raw, but he didn’t want the dragon to feel rushed, either. He’d promised him as long as he needed.

Erwin leaned forward on the bed and let his elbows rest on his knees, blocking out the dull yellowy light with the palms of his hands while he sat there and thought over what he would say to Levi. He wasn’t sure how long it was before the drake emerged. He didn’t hear the water shut off or the door swing open. He didn’t see Levi standing there looking at him from the doorway in what must have been a good deal of confusion. What got his attention were the tips of Levi's fingers, so lightly brushed over the back of Erwin’s wrist that he didn’t even jump when he felt them. Erwin looked up quickly, catching the last few seconds of the drake’s slow retreat, his hand withdrawing uncertainly to grasp at the towel draped around him. His hair was still dripping, inadequately dried or completely ignored. It was slicked back from all his sharp features in a way that made him look more dragon-like than Erwin had ever seen him in this form, though for the moment he wasn’t scowling.

“I brought you a shirt.”

Levi’s head turned to one side, following Erwin’s hand to the folded garment on the bed beside him.

“When you go out in public you’ll have to wear clothes,” Erwin told him. “They’ll keep you warmer, too. Why don’t you try this and see if you like it?” The look on Levi’s face was deeply skeptical, but he didn’t seem opposed to it, so Erwin turned the shirt around and bunched it up the way it needed to go. “Put your arms through here.” He held the garment as Levi did what he was told, letting his towel drop so he could push his arms through the correct holes. “Then you put your head through here.” He let Levi do that on his own, wanting to stay as far as he could from the back of the dragon’s neck. He did help him untangle the hem, though, reaching out and pulling it down so it fell the way it was supposed to. Erwin had been right. It was a big shirt. On Levi it stopped just above the middle of his thighs, covering most of him like a short dress. The dragon shifted unhappily, rolling his shoulders like he was getting ready to complain about feeling confined, but he paused.

Levi raised one of his arms and turned his head to sniff at the shoulder, reaching up to pull the neck away from his skin so he could put his nose down the front and breathe in. There was no telling what he smelled--if it was detergent or the outdoors or some scent of Erwin’s. It had been all over the yard and all over Erwin, though at the moment it was clean. Whatever it was, Levi liked enough to stop wiggling, to move around Erwin to the bed without issuing any complaint.

"If you decide you want to take it off it's easiest to take it by the bottom like this and pull up."

Levi paused on the edge of the bed to watch Erwin lift part of his own shirt. The detective did not remove it completely. He'd barely cleared his navel with the hem, but Levi's eyes lingered unapologetically on his stomach for a moment after the fabric had fallen back into place. He tugged at his own shirt as he slid his legs into the sheets, worming down into them and trying visibly not to loosen them too much so they stayed bundled around him snugly. Only then did he frown, pulling the sheets up to his nose and smelling those, too, like he didn’t recognize them.

“I’m washing your old ones,” Erwin told him. “For now, I gave you an extra set of mine. I’m washing some of the top blankets, too, and the ones on the sofa, so you’ll have to make do with an emptier nest for an hour or two. Do you think you can survive?”

Levi stared at Erwin for a long time, his expression inscrutable, then one corner of his mouth twitched and he shook his head slowly.

“Maybe the heating pad will help, then. It’s in there somewhere.”

The drake felt around with his feet for a minute, not sure what he was looking for until he found it and his eyes widened in pleasant surprise, his knees drawing up a little so he could stick both feet under the postage stamp of warmth. Erwin sat back down on the bed once he knew where all of Levi’s body parts were buried and he turned his head to look thoughtfully at the dragon.

“I don’t want to lie to you about your situation,” he said. “It’s grave. We’re both going to have to work hard to keep you alive and that is no exaggeration. It isn't comforting knowledge, but this is your situation too. If you want to know more, I'll tell you."

Levi didn't require much time to consider it before he nodded.

"The other fighters from the stable all have euthanasia orders placed on them by some very powerful people that you can’t easily get around. You have one of those, too, but the date on it has been left open. Do you know what that means?”

Erwin could tell that he did. Levi had turned, facing the detective fully as he listened to what he had to say, his thin brows pinched together in concern.

“You’ve been allowed to live so far because you have information that my department needs for a case. You have information that I need for _my_ case. But I don’t want to see you killed once you deliver that information to me. Hanji says there may be a way. If we can jump through all the legal hoops and get you officially registered as--a dragon in my custody--we could contest that court order. I would need you on board with this.”

Levi nodded solemnly.

“Hanji proposed a loose plan that could get you out of it, but it's going to require some close teamwork. I realize we aren't there yet, but you should know what we're working towards.”

The dragon sat up slowly, pushing himself upright in the bed so that he could scowl at Erwin more effectively. It wasn’t a hostile expression. The detective could see how unsettled this subject made Levi, but he nodded again, wanting him to continue.

“You have a vet visit scheduled with Grisha in a week. At that time, I will have the opportunity to sign some initial registration papers. That will be my claim of legal ownership, which Hanji assures me is necessary. Hanji is mated to another of my friends, Moblit, and Mike is mated to Nanaba. For them, those papers are nothing but legalities and I would like for ours to be the same. I will not own a sentient being. If I have to sign a sheet of paper to keep you, that is something I’ll live with, but you are not my property,” Erwin bit out that last like it tasted bitter in his mouth. “I won’t do it if you don’t agree.”

Levi started to nod, but Erwin held up a hand to stop him. “Don’t decide now. I know it isn't much of a choice to begin with, but you still have a week to think on it. If you agree and I sign, then we will have thirty days from the date on the paperwork to get you enrolled in an obedience school, which we will fake our way through with flying colors. That's where the teamwork comes in. Once you have a certificate showing that you passed, it will be difficult for the courts to argue that you are too dangerous to keep. It’s not a perfect plan, but it’s all we have for now. Hanji is working on some alternatives.”

Levi simply nodded again.

“I've been treating you ignorantly," Erwin went on. "I reacted tonight as though I was dealing with a human emergency and because of that I caused you distress. I haven't been taking your history into account as much as I should have. I didn't think to warn you not to swallow the bleach because I grew up in a world that has always had bleach in it. I've known for most of my life, but you haven't. Despite all these things I wanted to stress to you that I’m on your side. I'm working on filling the gaps in my knowledge, but I'm sure there will be more mistakes. Hopefully smaller ones. Please don't take those as maliciousness."

The dragon stared at Erwin like he’d grown a third head. He’d already _been_ staring at him like he’d grown a second. He actually opened his mouth as though he meant say something, then, but he was so at a loss that he just closed it again, overwhelmed.

"Do you mind telling me," Erwin asked slowly. "Did you grow up in that stall? You seem to have some other experience with being outside of it." He was _stable,_ Erwin meant. Levi was damaged and there was no questioning that, but he wasn't ruined. Living in total isolation--growing up that way--caused problems that a person couldn't recover from. Levi didn't seem to have much of that, like he'd been socialized early.

Levi licked his lips, nodding reluctantly.

"You were bred at that stable?"

A nod.

"But you weren't always there?"

A nod.

Erwin tried to imagine how that had come about. He couldn't see Marty Branch fostering out dragons for socialization purposes. It seemed counterproductive if he wanted to encourage their violence. Unless ...

"Did they breed for profit as well?" Erwin asked. "Did a family buy you?"

Levi's nod was hesitant, but it was an answer. It made sense from a certain standpoint. Levi was a small dragon. He was small enough that he'd probably shown it right out of the egg. The assumption that he'd be a poor fighter was logical. Just by looking at him there was no way of knowing that he was so impossibly strong. He wasn't even in the same weight class as his opponents. It made sense to sell dragons like these--ones that didn't seem likely to last.

"How did you end up back there?" Erwin asked. "Did they return you?"

Levi huffed a short breath and looked away. He had known something different from the stable, then, however brief. Would that be worse than never knowing any kindness?

“We can discuss it more later,” Erwin promised. “Would you like me to bring you some tea or do you think it would hurt your stomach?” He realized he’d asked two questions at once and added, “Nod for tea.”

Levi nodded, so Erwin gathered up all the fabric strewn across the bedroom floor and left the drake to his thoughts, flipping the light off as he went. Erwin started the tea first and left the water to boil while he got the sheets going, but even with the process expedited, Levi was out cold when Erwin returned. He should have anticipated that, probably. The drake had been exhausted. Erwin saw from the doorway that he was asleep and turned to take the tea tray back downstairs, but he hesitated, his eyes moving over the dragon’s sharp features and the little crease between his brows--tense even in sleep. He was curled once more around one of the pillows, his knees drawn up beneath it so it wasn’t clear if he was guarding the pillow or if the pillow was guarding him.

Erwin slid the tea tray onto the top of the dresser and moved to Levi’s bedside, lowering himself into a crouch on the floor by the bed rather than sit down and risk disturbing the mattress. He asked himself, was he prepared to become this little drake’s guard dog? He already felt like one, something angry and protective stirring to life inside of his chest. Let it be what it had to be.

The detective reached up and ran his hand over Levi’s damp hair, though it didn’t need smoothing. It was still slicked back from his shower and it wasn't dry enough yet to start falling. He brushed his thumb experimentally over that troubled brow, trying to place this new idea he had of how he and Levi fit together. The gesture didn’t feel too tender or too sentimental, so he tried it again, his thumb moving lightly over Levi’s damp skin. It didn’t feel wrong to him, or unsettling. The drake’s eyes cracked open and they were bleary with sleep, barely there. He didn’t quite look at Erwin and he didn’t see him if he did. He just took a deep breath and his eyes fluttered shut, carrying Erwin’s scent back into his dreams.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been meaning for some time now to go into my inbox and reply to all of your comments because I do appreciate them. On work days I save them for the end of the day and I curl up in bed to read everything and they make a bad day better like you wouldn't believe. I'm so glad you guys are liking this story. Thank you, always, for reading. <3


	12. Physical

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grisha comes for Levi's post-op examination and Levi discovers a few more reasons to hate seeing the doctor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> POSSIBLE TRIGGER WARNING for discussions of neutering. [Mandalope](http://harmony283.tumblr.com/) mentioned that I might want to mention that. I also want to apologize REALLY PROFUSELY to Grisha for what I do to him in this chapter. More notes on this at the end because spoilers kind of.

Over the week that followed, Erwin and Levi fell into a tentative routine. Erwin would get up first and put their tea and coffee on. He would start their breakfasts--something different each day for himself and meat for Levi with a little of whatever Erwin was having. Those items were technically off-menu, but he couldn’t deny the drake his curiosity when he expressed it so eagerly. Erwin had been adding new things to Levi's meals for several days, watching the drake’s caution shift into enthusiasm as he discovered what it was like to have tastebuds and options.

Levi inhaled Nanaba’s blueberries, in a manner of speaking. He sought them out in bulk, but when he had them he ate them slowly, putting one berry at a time into his mouth and crushing them against the roof of his mouth. He’d taken to eating _everything_ that way, savoring flavors once it became apparent that he would be able to--that Erwin wasn’t going to stop feeding him or take something from him if he liked it too visibly. Levi was still working through his feeding regimen, so quantities of the exciting things were limited, but he’d recognized the pattern and realized that Erwin was giving him a little more each time--working Levi up to a full meal just as he promised he would.

The drake wasn't picky or tentative with his food, for which Erwin was endlessly grateful. The only thing they'd found so far that Levi wasn't keen on was the tiny piece of cooked hamburger that Erwin allowed him for the sake of curiosity. It was processed meat so Levi didn't need to like it anyway.

The toilet tutorial didn’t take. Levi had watched Erwin's presentation with a look of absolute disgust on his face and then pointedly left to use the yard. Those trips tired him out less and less as the week progressed. By Thursday he was even getting up and down the stairs without trouble, though he still preferred his nest on the sofa where he could divide his attention between Hallmark and Erwin. He hadn't figured out yet that the channels could be changed--something that Erwin thought best until he had a better impression of humanity. He didn't think the dragon was ready yet for Dexter reruns.

They had ordered Levi’s tea that first week, using Erwin's tablet to scroll through their options as they sat together at the counter for over an hour and browsed through the descriptions. Erwin was made to read each one aloud despite the fact that neither of them knew anything about tea and Levi had no idea what most of the ingredients were in the first place. They’d have been just as well off tossing a coin, but Erwin read them. And then Levi would either add it to the cart or leave it.

Most of them he added.

He added tea samples until Erwin casually drew his attention over to the teapots, thinking they had enough Earl Gray and Irish Breakfast and Blueberry Ocean Nightmare to open their own tea shop. The website they'd settled on was unbelievable. There were twelve pages of teapots and Erwin had no way of telling how to recognize a claustrophobic tea strainer if he saw one. He explained to Levi what Hanji said--that apparently they needed something more roomy than what they had--and the dragon scowled thoughtfully and stopped to zoom in on every tea strainer photograph like he was analyzing them for suitability. It was obviously important to him that he do tea the right way, so Erwin pointed out the ones with descriptions that said things like, "... generous strainer allows room for the tea leaves to fully unfurl," until Levi settled on a greenish cast iron pot decorated in raised bamboo shoots. It came with a matching trivet and its tea strainer sounded up to par, but Erwin encouraged him to page through the rest before he decided. Levi still returned to the bamboo.

Once they had the order placed, it was necessary for Erwin to explain how the mail system worked--that it would take several days for the items to arrive and that someone would be bringing the box to the doorstep with a high probability of ringing or knocking. "This person is not an intruder," Erwin had explained. "They are providing you a service by bringing your tea to you, so you don't need to murder them or they can’t bring you any more."

Levi had nodded very solemnly, but he still checked the doorstep several times a day hoping to find that the package had arrived and he’d simply missed it. Like clockwork, he checked after every shower and every nap, any time he was not fully present and aware. Evidently he didn’t trust Erwin to respond correctly to the sound of the mailman.

The morning of Levi's vet visit, that was exactly what he was getting ready to do. He was pulling on Erwin's warmest bathrobe while the kettle heated, preparing to go out to the woods for his early morning bathroom expedition, but he moved like the house was on fire. “You know that if it’s out there, it isn’t going to run away, don’t you?” Erwin asked from the kitchen doorway where he leaned there watching Levi with a wooden spoon in his hand and a look of firmly suppressed amusement on his face. Levi ignored him just as firmly.

"One of these days somebody will catch a glimpse of you squatting out there in my woods with that ridiculous bathrobe hiked up around your waist and they're going to call the police." Erwin had to move quickly to snatch his badge wallet out of the air when Levi plucked it from the entry table and tossed it at him. "Yes, I know I'm the police, but they'll call the other police and then I'll have to explain to one of my coworkers why it's perfectly normal to have a dragon using my yard as a toilet."

There was a soft knock at the door.

Levi dove for the knob too quickly for Erwin to warn him that he needed to close the front of his robe, that people didn't habitually sign for packages in the nude. He tore the door open hard enough that the displaced air ruffled _Erwin's_ hair all the way down the hall. Great. Now they were going to have a traumatized UPS driver to deal with and they might be noted as sexual deviants in the company’s delivery notes--if they kept those. Maybe they didn’t keep those. Erwin started down the hall ready to explain Levi's state of undress when the dragon’s shoulders hunched and he started growling softly from somewhere in the back of his throat. That was actually a relief, knowing who it must be.

"Good morning, Grisha. I'm sorry, Levi is still not keen on clothes."

"It's nothing I haven't seen before," the vet answered, though his eyes had fallen naturally to Levi's incision, the doctor in him already making a visual inspection of the wound site. He had a box in his hands. "This was on your front porch. Were you expecting a parcel?"

"You'd better give that to me," Erwin suggested, edging around the bristling drake so that Grisha didn't have to risk losing a limb as he passed the box to Erwin. As soon as it was safely in Erwin's custody the dragon quieted, his shoulders dropping minutely. "It's some tea we ordered for Levi."

"Heavy tea."

"There's also a teapot."

The veterinarian raised an eyebrow, but he didn't have to say anything else. Erwin knew it seemed like a strange thing to have ordered. Of all the wonders that the internet could offer--tea.

"He's taken a liking to it."

"Yes, I can tell by the size of the box. I'll wait out here," he told them, his eyes moving past Erwin to the tense dragon standing just behind him. "I don't want to intrude."

"You're examining him outside?" Erwin asked.

"By the mobile clinic. It's safe for him to return to his dragon form if that makes him feel more comfortable."

Erwin nodded. "We'll be out in a minute. I need to put some eggs back in the refrigerator."

Levi followed him--or followed the tea, more likely--his eyes bright where they settled on the box that Erwin slid onto the counter. "I'll tell you what. Don't murder the vet and we can open your tea right after he leaves with all his limbs in their original positions."

The drake scowled. Erwin could feel him scowling even with his back turned so he could put their eggs back in the carton. Levi hadn't tried eggs yet. They'd been getting ready to see if he liked them when Grisha arrived. When Erwin reached over to flip the kettle off it was like he’d just told Levi he would have to start using the bathroom inside. "Wouldn't you rather open it without a checkup looming on the horizon anyway? You can settle in with your first cup of new tea and watch Christmas movies until your eyeballs turn red and green."

Levi huffed, but he preceded Erwin into the hall and slid smoothly into his dragon form on his way out the door. It had been a long time. Erwin could see it in the way his back arched, his glossy scales rippling as muscles moved and stretched beneath them, his jaw rolling open in a yawn that exposed a zillion wicked-looking dinosaur teeth. Once he cleared the doorway his wings opened, stretching beyond the full length of the front porch and nearly taking out a flower pot full of dead spearmint.

"Watch where you're putting those if you want to try mint in your tea," Erwin warned him. It was assuming a lot that Levi would still be here come summertime. Even after saving him, he may end up elsewhere--the preserve or another state, smuggled North to Canada, possibly. British Columbia was good for mountains. There were other preserves there--preserves that fell beyond the DCA's jurisdiction. Levi wouldn't be their problem anymore. They may leave him alone.

"Hey," Erwin said quietly at the foot of his porch stairs, stopping Levi in his tracks with the gravity in his tone. "Remember that this is the first thing we have to accomplish. The plan starts today."

Levi nodded once.

"Are you speaking, Levi?" Grisha asked him as he circled the truck once, his nostrils flaring as he smelled all the little remnants of other dragons on the veterinarian’s bags and equipment. He actually poked his head into the back of the mobile clinic, tense and mistrustful like he thought he might find one hiding in there.

"He hasn't spoken yet, but I think he will soon. There were several instances over this past week where I thought he might, but he always closed his mouth again. It's alright. There's no hurry," he added when Levi looked over at them.

Grisha nodded thoughtfully. "You seem to be getting along much better than you were when he arrived."

"I think so."

"I know so," Grisha countered. "He is comfortable being close to you. I saw the difference as soon as you opened the door. Are you satisfied?" That last was directed at Levi, who had finished inspecting the mobile clinic and did appear satisfied with what he saw. He set Grisha with a challenging stare--the aggressive one like the kind they'd seen at the stable--but Grisha looked away quickly rather than respond to the challenge. "The good news is that he doesn't appear to be feral."

"He doesn't?" Erwin asked, earning himself a withering look from the dragon's direction.

Grisha shook his head, either ignoring their shenanigans or simply missing them. "A feral dragon wouldn't be out here even with someone familiar at hand. He's poorly socialized, but he isn't out of control. That bodes well for you both."

"I don't think socialization was on anyone's mind when they bred him," Erwin answered, surprised to catch himself feeling a little defensive on Levi’s behalf. Grisha actually paused at the sound of the other man’s tone, his intelligent eyes sharpening with interest.

"You seem to be taking to him, too."

"I am." It was only the truth, though Levi looked over at him like it surprised him to hear it.

"Does that mean you intend to proceed with the courtship?" Grisha asked. "Has either of you expressed an interest in pursuing it?"

"I think we're both still feeling each other out," Erwin answered neutrally. "We're taking one day at a time."

"Still in the allure phase, then. That's good. That's safe. Let's begin your checkup, Levi, if you’re ready."

The dragon stepped back, though, when Grisha approached him--something that the veterinarian knew better than to push. He barely had to glance at any of Levi’s other body language before he was looking to the blonde for guidance. "Erwin?"

"He's going to have to get near you to examine you, Levi. He needs to be sure you're healing the way you should be."

"First, I'm going to step into the back of the truck for a pair of gloves," Grisha let him know. "That's all I'm doing. Go back around to Erwin if you like." He kept his calm well, considering what he knew about Levi. Erwin wondered, not for the first time, what sort of cases he’d seen before this one. Had there been anything worse or just enough to make him feel that way?

The dragon waited until Grisha had stepped up safely into the back of the truck before he turned and slinked back over to Erwin, taking the long way around and holding his wings a few inches away from his body like he did when he was nervous.

"He's going to touch you probably," Erwin let him know, noting that the dragon tucked himself up close to Erwin without making physical contact. "But it won't be bad. He'll probably look into your nose and down your throat. He'll check your ears. Everybody goes to the doctor and nobody likes it, but they put up with it so they know they're well. Just tolerate it, okay? This is the man who saved your life."

Levi shook his head in disagreement, but when Grisha jumped from the back of the truck with one of his medical bags he stood his ground and let the vet come.

"In just a moment I'll need to look at your human form as well," he let the dragon know. "Lower your head, please." He shone a light into each of the dragon's nostrils and Erwin was surprised to find that Grisha managed to keep the touching to a bare minimum. He supposed that was a necessary skill to learn in his area of specialty, but Erwin hadn't realized it could be done so adeptly. Grisha managed to conduct most of his basic examination without touching Levi at all with his hands, only the instruments coming into contact with his scales. Erwin wouldn’t have even noticed it if he hadn’t been watching for it.

"Have you ever had pets, Erwin?" Grisha asked as he worked.

"I had a hamster when I was ten." Erwin thought the vet was making conversation until he caught the way his lips pulled down at the corners. And that startled him. Erwin hadn't been aware that Grisha looked at dragons that way--like pets. He supposed it had been an assumption on his part, automatically lumping Grisha in with his friends because they all cleared the stable together. Or maybe he just expected a vet to understand more, to see more. Grisha had studied dragons for most of his life and seen them on both the inside and the outside. Shouldn’t he notice the fundamental difference between a dragon and a hamster?

"The hamster is hardly any indicator of my ability to keep someone alive in my home," Erwin said casually. "I've had friends over before and they survived the experience."

"That is a dangerous stance to take," the vet said grimly, looking up from the unmarked ear canal he’d been peering into. "Levi is not your friend, he's your dragon and treating him otherwise could ruin him. I've seen others make that same mistake. What he needs from you is guidance--a clear idea of what his role is."

Levi snorted a small plume of smoke into the chilly air and jerked his head unhelpfully from Grisha’s reach.

"I think he is starting to understand his role," Erwin replied. "He's learning that he isn't anyone's plaything and I'm pleased with his progress."

Grisha shook his head slowly, part of his attention on Levi. He’d been keeping one careful eye on the dragon since he stepped out of the house, unwilling to risk any distraction. “I don’t mean to suggest that you treat him as his previous owners did, but a temperament like Levi’s _will_ require a firm and experienced hand to control. He looks human most of the time and it’s fooled you into believing that you can treat him like one without any consequences. That’s what concerns me. Hamsters cannot prepare you for a dragon, Detective.”

“I’m curious to know what could have,” Erwin said honestly, raising his eyes to look into the dragon’s flawless poker face. “But I think we’ve both learned enough by now to keep going.”

Grisha sighed, but that unsettled look did not abate.

Levi grew increasingly offended by all the poking and prodding, shuddering unhappily each time the doctor pulled away to make a note on his clipboard like he hoped to shake the man off him. "He appears to be from European decent," Grisha continued finally. "But his bloodlines are so mixed that I can't identify the country. Germany, perhaps, and France. But then, the tail suggests something Asian. Lift it, please."

Levi whipped his head around so fast it was a blur, the tail in question pulling closer to his body.

"I need to have a look at your vent," the vet explained. "I won't touch anything. It's a strictly visual examination."

The dragon's growl was a lot more intimidating when he had a large chest to accommodate the acoustics. It resonated more effectively--had a much richer quality of sound. Grisha looked back over at Erwin for interpretation.

"It isn’t a bluff," the detective said. "He’s not showing you his vent without a strong sedative.”

Levi huffed his agreement.

“You’ll have to do it yourself then. An unhealthy looking vent could signal any number of things from disease to parasitic infection and some of those have terminal results. Contagious, terminal results.”

“Understood,” Erwin said. “Tell me what to look for."

_You absolutely will not,_ Levi’s expression stated, but Grisha was already speaking.

"You will need to check for anything that is oozing or looks swollen and irritated. A healthy vent will be a clean, barely visible seam with no discoloration around the scales."

"I think I can handle that."

"I will also need a stool sample to check for endoparasites," Grisha added. "I don't need it now. You can bring it by the clinic sometime within the next few days. I'll give you a specimen jar before I go."

But Levi was shaking his head, his gray eyes narrowing to tiny slits in his face as he transferred his glare from one man to the other and back again.

"This is really something you should pursue," Grisha said. "If he's carrying parasites he could pass them to you or to anyone else who comes into your home if his hind end is making contact with your furniture or floor. And some species can be very problematic for both humans and dragons."

Erwin had not thought it possible for Levi to look more affronted than he already had. The detective actually reached out to lay a hand on the closest quivering shoulder because he wanted to draw attention back to himself before those formidable jaws closed over Grisha's head. Levi twitched away from him sharply, but the momentary distraction did its work and Erwin was able to interject. "You came from rough circumstances and anyone could pick up parasites from there. That's the reason for tests like this. So we can get them out of you if you have them. Wouldn't you rather know?"

Grisha watched their exchange quietly, taking a very wise step away and giving Levi some space to be angry in. "I'll have to leave that part of the paperwork blank until I get the lab work back on Levi's stool tests, so if you want to text me later regarding his vent, that would be fine. I trust you not to forget."

"And I trust Levi to be sensible regarding his health," Erwin added smoothly as he and the drake entered into one of their silent battles of will.

"Many dragons aren't," Grisha noted unhelpfully. "They would rather let themselves be eaten from the inside out than allow a vet to look at their vent."

Or maybe it wasn't so unhelpful. Levi looked over nervously at Grisha, breaking eye contact to shift his weight around like he was thinking uncontrollably of that prospect, his mind running with the idea. The vet carried on, directing the words at Erwin like they were really meant for him. There was no exaggeration in his tone--no indication that he didn't mean exactly what he said. "I've seen some dragons so stubborn that they died rather than submit to the examination. When I opened them up for a necropsy, their insides were a mess. Have you ever seen uncooked ground beef?"

Levi lifted his tail.

It didn't even strike Erwin as a terrible ordeal. Grisha just bent over and used his long penlight to illuminate the dark scales where Levi's vent must have been. He was done before the drake had a chance to change his mind, straightening with a satisfied nod and pulling the clipboard from beneath his arm. "I don't see anything that raises an immediate alarm. Still, I would keep him off your furniture until the stool samples come back if he's wandering around your house in the nude." Grisha made a quick notation on the documents he was working on, ignoring the glower that his suggestion earned him. "Now, if you don't mind, Levi, I will need you to resume your human form so I can finish the examination."

Levi did mind. He raised his head, ignoring Grisha completely like he hadn't heard him. He could only tolerate so much humiliation before his patience wore out, though he knew they needed Grisha in their camp if there was a court case in their future. They'd discussed it that very morning--or Erwin had discussed it while Levi stared at him over his first pot of tea. The veterinarian would not perjure himself for them. If a judge asked him for his thoughts he would give honest ones and so it was Grisha they would have to fool first. Unfortunately, Erwin wasn't sure how much Levi cared about that right then, the fury too evident in his posture. Erwin supposed they were lucky he hadn't left yet. Or killed the vet.

"I can't complete the examination until he shifts," Grisha sighed. "I will need these results to fill out your claim papers and he can't pass a medical exam until I finish conducting it."

"He understands. Don't you, Levi?"

The dragon swung his head around, looking at Erwin from one of his eyes the way he had that day on the preserve. There was no reading the thoughts passing through his head, though Erwin hoped they were memories from earlier that morning, from their conversation the week prior. Fool the vet. Then fool everyone else. Erwin lifted an eyebrow, seeking to remind him.

Levi snorted a small and disgruntled plume of smoke, aiming to communicate his reluctance as he stepped back from Grisha and allowed his dragon shape to melt around him.

"Oh," Grisha breathed. "I hadn't realized …”

After an uneasy silence, Erwin felt it necessary to prompt, “Realized what?”

“When I put the IV in I noticed his hands, but the rest of him as well ..." Grisha stepped nimbly around Levi, catching a glimpse of the dark line down his spine before the dragon turned to face him, not trusting him where he couldn't see what he was doing. "My God. Erwin."

"Is something the matter?"

Grisha's eyes jumped to the detective's face. "What do you know about carryovers?"

"Hanji told me what they were," Erwin answered vaguely. he wasn't sure if this subject was one for Levi's ears. "They said it wasn't a health concern."

"Doctor Zoë told you that?" Grisha blinked at him, disbelieving. "Of course it's a health concern. It’s true that carryover traits in themselves are only a problem in the cosmetic sense. On their own, they pose no danger, but they are a symptom of _highly_ irresponsible breeding. Think of them like warning signs, if you like. A dragon that looks this way has not been selected for. No one has given his existence any consideration. They just churned him out in mass production like a factory making number two pencils."

Erwin automatically glanced over at Levi, who stood there with his brow furrowed thoughtfully as he listened. There was no way to know how much he was picking up--which of Grisha's human references he understood. He didn't look upset, but that didn't mean he wouldn't realize in just a moment what they were discussing. Erwin had promised him transparency, but he didn't want to set their progress back, either.

"We knew that," Erwin said slowly, formulating the safest response even as he spoke it. "Levi's genetics are not a factor in my decision to sign for him."

"That's exactly what I was afraid of," Grisha answered. "It isn't his attractiveness that concerns me as a veterinarian. He could look like the troll under a bridge and I wouldn't say a word if it had no bearing on his health, but for one dragon to have this many carryover traits--almost all of the recorded imperfections, in fact--could indicate serious genetic deficiency. If he doesn't develop health problems it will almost certainly manifest itself as mental instability. Coupled with his size and the fact that I can't even identify his ancestral lineage-- _yes,_ I would say this is a health issue for both of you."

"He seems healthy now," Erwin replied briskly, though the vet's vehemence honestly shook him. He had no idea what to make of that brutal assessment whether he hadn’t wanted Levi to hear it or not. Hanji had cited snobbery as the reason why carryover traits were undesirable in a human-form dragon, but Grisha made his argument sound very convincing on medical grounds as well. The vet believed it himself, anyway. Erwin could see the truth of that in his face. "Perhaps he dodged a bullet?"

Grisha shook his head. "If not now, then later. Go sit on the back of the truck, Levi."

The dragon didn't move. He looked over at Erwin for confirmation, paying no heed to Grisha's wishes unless they aligned with Erwin's. In that case, they did. Erwin nodded his agreement and Levi turned, but the drake's expression was pinched with confusion like he was still muddling his way through an understanding of Grisha's assessment. Erwin hoped he never figured it out. He was already looking down at his hands like he knew he’d just been told there was something wrong with them, but he couldn't figure out why. His eyes moved from his dark fingers to Erwin's to Grisha's and it was obvious he’d work it out before long. If the two pairs of human hands in front of him weren't enough, there were plenty to look at on the Hallmark Channel--both human and dragon. Erwin reached out and caught Grisha before he could follow Levi.

"Pull me aside the next time you have something negative to say, if you don't mind," he said quietly, stopping him before he could follow Levi over to the truck. "I'm trying to make him more comfortable, not less."

"I apologize," Grisha said as he slipped away. "I have more to tell you, but I'll hold my thoughts until the end."

He repeated many of the same tests on Levi's human form that he had on the dragon's, seeing if there were any anomalies that he could spot in one form and not the other. He took Levi's blood pressure and that was new since he hadn't been so cooperative with his tail, then he performed the reflex test on his knees. He bent to look at the healing incision, experimentally lifting one edge of the peeling glue until Levi pulled away with a hiss and Grisha had to apologize. "You can just let this fall off on its own, though I would keep transformations to a minimum for at least another week. Erwin, a word?"

"We'll be just a moment, Levi. Please stay there." He led them a short distance away and motioned for Grisha to turn. He had no way of knowing if the dragon could read lips and he didn't trust what was about to come out of the veterinarian's mouth.

"I would not allow this to continue," Grisha said softly. "If you are interested in having a dragon, then I would highly recommend a visit to a licensed breeder. They watch their lines closely and they know what they're doing. Levi is ... A catastrophe, frankly. Get yourself a healthy, properly socialized creature from a breeder and take Levi to the precinct where he can be properly secured. This is my professional opinion."

"Keep your voice down," Erwin said quickly, certain that Grisha's end of the conversation was carrying over to Levi. "I'm not interested in buying a dragon."

"I assure you, the expense is well worth the difference in temperament and stability."

"It isn't about the expense. I'm not signing for Levi because I didn't have to buy him. I'm signing for him because I don’t see any other way to keep a euthanasia order from sticking to him."

"That’s your motivation, then?" Grisha asked. He obviously didn’t know whether to be relieved or dismayed. "You don’t have any interest in courting him? Ordinarily these papers are only signed _after_ a courtship is finalized."

"This isn't an ordinary situation. Where are they?"

"Up front," Grisha said, breaking away to move for the cab, "but I will need to add a few more notes before you sign. We also need to get something on the books to have him neutered if you won’t take him to the precinct."

That stopped Erwin right in his tracks. "Excuse me? Neutered?"

"Yes, of course. What does your schedule look like?"

The detective's stomach turned over in disgust, but his tone revealed very little when he stated, "I'm not having Levi neutered."

Grisha raised both his eyebrows at Erwin--little crescents appearing over the top rim of his glasses. "May I ask why not? It isn't illegal, but it isn't common practice either. The DCA will scrutinize you much more closely with an unaltered dragon in your possession."

"Let them."

"I don't mean to be crass," the vet began. "But if you do not neuter him and you decide to complete the courtship, you're looking at a sexual relationship. Is that what you want?" He paused, but it was brief. "By neutering a dragon, you take away the sexual component, but it doesn't dampen the creature's devotion to you in the slightest. Dragons will still pair with a human for emotional and instinctive reasons without needing to remain intact. You don't have to have sex with Levi for him to feel that devotion, if that's what concerns you."

"I believe we're getting too far ahead of ourselves at this juncture. Neither Levi nor myself have made a decision where courtship is concerned."

"No," Grisha disagreed. "It's something to consider now. If you choose not to get him altered and he starts wanting you sexually, you can't do much about it at that late stage except try to divert his interest, which I believe is cruel."

"I'm not worried about keeping his devotion," Erwin replied simply. "What I'm worried about is neutering a sentient creature like he's some stray dog I found in the street. If I can't fulfill all aspects of the courtship as they are meant to be fulfilled, then I won't court him at all. I'm not altering Levi for my own comfort. I believe _that_ is cruelty."

"It's your decision," Grisha sighed. "All I can do is advise." He reached over into the passenger seat to retrieve the documents he needed. He'd already attached them to a clipboard--a small packet for each of them to work on. He added the sheet he'd just filled in with the examination results, signing at the bottom of the page immediately following it. "I've documented here that Levi is healthy enough to be released into domestic care and that his only physical health concern is his weight. He's still a little thin, but I can see that you've been working on that. I've also marked that he is under socialized and defensive. That's something a good obedience school could help with. I can list a few names for you if you like."

"Yes, thank you." Erwin didn't honestly know where to begin looking for a school himself.

"You'll want to get him in as soon as you are able in case you need to change schools." His tone made that sound very likely. "These are some that I recommend for more challenging behavioral issues. They have the staff and resources available to work with Levi where others may not."

Grisha passed down the clipboard, but picked up his phone so he could send Erwin the contacts.

"I'll be around the back," Erwin told him, and left it at that.

Levi was still seated on the truck where they left him, shivering in the cold. He'd tucked his hands beneath his thighs, but as Erwin approached him, he slid off the back and his troubled frown gave way to horns and scales as he disappeared into his dragon form. Those stubby little horns were cute, Erwin realized. They were small like the rest of him. "We're almost finished," Erwin assured him. "I just have to sign these. I told you I wouldn't do it unless you agreed. Have you changed your mind?"

Levi shook his head slowly.

"You want to do this, then?"

He nodded.

"Alright," Erwin said quietly. He set the clipboard on the back of the truck and flipped through the documents, scanning each page before he signed it. One was a release form for the blood work. One was an agreement to DCA home and property inspections. There was an agreement to enroll in a licensed obedience school within thirty days of the signing date. He read the next page with particular care--an agreement that the DCA could seize and destroy Levi if he was found to have committed a crime or be a carrier for MARV-d. He knew that one was a formality. They would seize him in either of those cases whether they had Erwin's signature or not. Levi watched quietly as Erwin read and signed everything, unable to read it himself, but listening carefully to the detective's narration. In Erwin's back pocket, his phone buzzed softly as Grisha sent him each of the names.

"Well," Erwin sighed as he finished. "That's the end of our vacation. I hope you're ready to become a perfect angel overnight."

Levi snorted.

"At least be ready to produce some Oscar-worthy acting." The dragon tilted his head. "I'll explain Oscars later." He circled back around to Grisha and passed the papers back up to him.

"Did I hear you ask Levi for his consent?"

Erwin paused. He'd been using a fairly low speaking voice. Did sound carry around the vehicle that easily? If so ... Erwin glanced back towards the rear of the mobile clinic, wondering how much of their conversation about imperfect genes Levi had been privy to. All of it, probably.

"You did," Erwin answered stiffly. "Levi and I will be working closely over the next several weeks to ensure his survival. How can you work with someone if they are not a part of the decision making process?"

"I can’t stress enough that teaching Levi to stand on equal ground with humans is--" Grisha cut himself off as he changed directions. "Maybe with some other dragon, if that's your personal style of ownership. I realize that you look at your friends and you see it working, but they were different dragons to begin with. If you try the same with Levi it's more likely to get you killed."

"I understand your concern and I'm glad that you care enough to express it," Erwin replied diplomatically.

"But you're not going to listen to me."

"No, I'm afraid not."

The vet sighed. "Let me get you that specimen jar."

Erwin stepped back so that Grisha could climb down, falling into step beside him. But Levi wasn't where Erwin left him. The men paused, looking around Erwin's yard for the drake, though they could hardly miss him if he was out there to be found. "Maybe he went back in." But Erwin could see that his front door was still closed.

Then the truck rocked gently on its wheels and Grisha was at the door in seconds, his voice actually raising as he looked into the back and snapped, "Get out of there!"

The vet ducked quickly to one side as Levi hopped out onto the grass, looking far too pleased with himself for anything friendly to have just happened. Erwin knew he hadn't been back there for an innocuous reason even before he caught the pungent odor of dragon dung wafting from the back of the clinic. Grisha closed the doors a little harder than necessary and turned to Erwin with a frown. "Sign that dragon up for obedience training _immediately_."

Erwin glanced thoughtfully into the back of the mobile clinic, leaning around the door to get a good look at the damage. Levi had been very thorough. He hadn’t realized that dragon waste was white like that. "You did say you wanted a stool sample,” he pointed out. “Now you can keep your specimen jar."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No character bashing intended. Not out of spite, anyway. I'm not entirely caught up with the manga, but I don't have a problem with Grisha as far as I know. I just need him to be kind of a dick for plot-related reasons. Sorry canon-Grisha. D=


	13. Putting Out Fires

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hanji warns Erwin that he needs to dissolve the courtship as soon as possible if he wants to express his disinterest without hurting Levi, but it may already be far too late for that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For now, it seems I'm back on track with the weekend posts. I've started working in earnest on my original thing as well, so here's hoping it stays that way. I love this story and I don't want to see it update any less often than weekly with the occasional exception.

Levi did not linger on the first floor. He stalked right past Erwin and the open kitchen doorway like neither held any interest for him, maintaining his dragon form as he squeezed up the stairs. Erwin's call of, "Are you coming back down for breakfast?" went unnoticed. The stairs creaked ominously under his weight, but they held together remarkably well, considering. "Stay close to the wall," Erwin called again. "Or you may go through the floor."

His warning was met with silence, but at least it wasn't the sound of the upstairs floorboards buckling.

Erwin hesitated over their breakfasts, unsure of what to do with Levi's. The shower came on and ran through the whole cooking process and even eating slowly, Erwin still finished his eggs before Levi showed up to try them. The water did eventually shut off, but the drake never came back downstairs, so Erwin procrastinated deliberately until he figured a reasonable amount of time had passed and it wouldn't be too unusual to check on him.

"Levi?" He asked the silent upstairs, poking his head into the guest bedroom and finding it empty. The bathroom was dark, but Erwin's robe lay folded at the foot of the bed in a tidy bundle, so Erwin hazarded a guess and knocked lightly on the half-open door. "Levi?" he asked again. "Are you still in there?"

A quiet slosh confirmed it as Levi moved, rolling over to press his body to the near side of the tub like he’d suddenly become modest about his nakedness. Erwin couldn't see much of him anyway in the dark. He'd closed the blinds and drawn the shower curtain mostly closed, but Erwin saw the top of his head when Levi moved to hide it against the inside edge of the tub, which he'd filled almost to the top.

"Are you feeling okay?" Erwin asked. Levi couldn't get much lower in the water without drowning himself in it, so Erwin was able to see the drake's head move when he gave a sharp nod.

"Do you want to open your tea and try some?"

Levi shook his head. Something _was_ wrong, then. He'd been waiting a week for that tea, checking the doorstep obsessively since Erwin placed the order.

"Do you want me to open it and bring you a cup?"

The drake hesitated as he considered it, but ultimately that one got a negative as well.

"I'll wait on you, then. If I don't see you when you come down, don't open it without me. We haven't had box cutter training yet."

There was no answer, not even a derisive snort. Erwin knew what it probably was that bothered him, but he didn't know how to bring it up. He didn't know himself what Grisha’s words really meant to Levi or how he should approach the matter. For all he knew the dragon simply had his feathers ruffled over all the poking and prodding. It didn't seem quite that harmless to Erwin, but he left it alone for the time being.

"If you want some company I'll be working in the living room," he let the drake know as he slipped quietly away. What he needed to do before that, though, was call Nanaba. The phone was in his hand before he cleared the bottom of the stairs, but he did not dial until he was safely out of earshot.

“Hey,” Nanaba answered breathlessly. Someone was screaming in the background. There were no words--just piercing, inhuman cry that came through so clearly that Erwin had to hold the phone away from his ear. “Hold on for just a second, Erwin. I’m dropping you into my pocket.”

Something rasped across the speaker--the inside of a sweatshirt pocket, probably. The horrible screaming drew closer as Nanaba approached its source, murmuring something soothing under the sound. “Nothing happened,” Erwin could make out. “You aren’t even scraped, look. _Look_.”

The wailing slowed tentatively, like the owner of the voice wasn’t sure yet that they had been appeased.

“There you go. Come here, I’ve got you.”

Something knocked against the speaker as Nanaba moved, probably lifting a youngling into her arms. That voice she used wasn’t one for adults, but apart from that it was difficult to tell what was going on. Being inside a pocket produced all kinds of interference.

“Sorry about that,” Nanaba said finally. “The younglings have started experimenting with their human forms. Baldwin isn’t used to his legs yet and I think he scared himself when he fell.”

“Baldwin?”

“Yeah. He looks kind of like you, but his hair hasn’t grown in. Just his eyebrows.”

“... Is his name really Baldwin?” He couldn’t tell over the phone if Nanaba was serious. She had that sort of voice.

“It was going to be a surprise. We were going to introduce him and then stand there and look at you until you saw the resemblance.”

“Send me photos.”

“Sure. He’s adorable. Very photogenic. How did the thing go? The you-know-what.” She was deliberately avoiding the word ‘vet’ where Baldwin could hear--probably wise, if Mike’s descriptions of the vet visit were anything to go by.

Erwin sank into his chair with a small sigh. He hadn't been aware that the microphone would catch something that faint, but Nanaba heard it.

"Uh oh. Grisha isn't in the hospital is he?"

"It wasn't that bad," Erwin assured her. He dragged a blanket across his lap and flipped the space heater on with his toes. "In this case I think it was Grisha who did the harming."

Nanaba was silent for a beat, the surprise evident in her tone when she did speak. "Grisha was? He seemed so competent at the stable. What did he do?"

"He said a lot of things where Levi could hear him. He explained to me that the carryover traits were an indication of poor breeding. I think I remember him essentially calling Levi ugly at one point."

Nanaba let out a low snort. "It's an indication that he was bred for something apart from his appearance. What does beauty matter to someone who wants the perfect killing machine?"

"He also said it could be a health or mental issue."

"Call Hanji for the science. All I can say is that most of the dragons who come to the preserve were rejected because they don't meet breeding standards and they aren't exactly dropping like flies. Their lifespan and general health seem pretty normal to me."

Erwin felt himself relax minutely. "So Grisha is buying into the breeder's view on things."

"I don't know, but he sounds biased in their favor, doesn't he?"

"I thought he did."

“But that’s not what you’re worried most about right now,” Nanaba guessed correctly. "Did Levi even know about carryovers before today or was all this new to him?"

"I don't know how much he knew beforehand, but it was obvious he never thought about it. He was looking at his hands like he couldn't figure out what Grisha's problem was.”

"It would have upset me, too." Nanaba agreed grimly. "Especially back when I was courting Mike. Things like that matter more when you have someone to impress, you know? Does it matter to you?"

Erwin's first and automatic answer was "No," but some of what Grisha said did concern him. "Only the matter of his health really bothers me. Do you know if anyone has researched that or if it's just conjecture?"

"Hell if I know. That's a question for the Doc. Our doc, not the misguided one."

Erwin breathed a short laugh. "Levi didn't take it lying down."

"I'm sure he didn't."

"He climbed into the back of the mobile clinic to leave Grisha his stool sample."

He had to wait for Nanaba to finish laughing into the phone, each slight lull indicating that she might be just about finished before she got herself going again. "Shit," she gasped. "Shit, Baldwin is looking at me like I've lost my mind. Sorry, sweetling. Go back to sleep." She trailed off, her clothes rustling softly as she bounced the young drake on her hip. "He did good," she said after a moment, referring to Levi. "He managed to express himself without any bloodshed. Maybe there's hope for him yet."

"Grisha gave me a list of obedience schools," Erwin admitted. "He gave me some that take challenging cases. Do you mind if I read off the names and see if you recognize any of them?"

"Sure. I can't recommend any of them, I'm afraid, but I may be able to tell you which ones to stay the hell away from."

Erwin read down the list--nine total names that Nanaba didn't react to except to hum thoughtfully when he paused.

"I've never heard of any of those," she drawled as he finished. "I'm a good dragon."

Erwin snorted. "Who did you two bribe for that determination?" He understood Nanaba's discomfort and almost regretted asking. Mike would have been able to give him some information with less emotion, but that was exactly why he needed Nanaba instead. Despite living close to dragons all his life, Mike could not entirely share their perspective. He could imagine himself in their situation but he could never be there in the same way they were. Erwin wanted to know which of the facilities on the list would make things easiest for _Levi_ , so it was Nanaba's opinion he needed most.

"All kidding aside, I've actually heard of a couple," she said. "Don't go to Sullivan's if it's the last school available. Run to Canada first. What they do there is standardized abuse. I wouldn't recommend them to anyone, but Levi would absolutely flip his shit the minute someone came at him with a switch. Don't go to anyone who uses physical methods of punishment. With Levi’s history, he would probably interpret it as tacit consent to open up his flame bladder on the whole building."

"How is beating a dragon not considered abuse?" Erwin wanted to know.

"They definitely toy with the line. It's marketed as discipline and the Sullivan facilities do put out some very obedient dragons, so the program hasn't ever been closely scrutinized. In some circles they're even considered the elite."

"How do you know all this?" Erwin asked. "You didn't attend ..."

"Hell no. We have some of their dropouts on the preserve. There aren't many, but it's enough to paint a decent picture. The White Flame Society is modeled after Sullivan's, so avoid that one, too. And Bootcamp Draco. I haven't heard much about Head Start or Scales & Tails, which probably means they're not doing anything noteworthy, which is exactly what you want. You want a school that doesn't have a reputation for excellence, because that reputation is earned." They paused, though. "Head Start might be one of the schools that use positive reinforcement rather than pain to get their message across. If I'm remembering it right. Research those two for now. Scales & Tails and Head Start."

"Was the one you went to on this list?"

"Absolutely not," Nanaba snorted. "Like I said, I'm a good dragon. A real gift to society." It was sarcasm, but there was a thread of pride behind it--the smallest sliver of satisfaction that she had done well to please her teachers. It was frightening to Erwin, how he could still detect a tiny thread of obedience training in Nanaba even after all her years with Mike. All her stubbornness and all the years she had been an equal half of a healthy couple hadn't completely eroded whatever sickness those places implanted in dragons.

"Was it awful?" He asked her finally. "What do I need to be prepared for?"

"Those programs are perfectly designed to get into your head. The one I attended wasn't terrible the way you're thinking. Nobody hurt me--Mike wouldn't have allowed that, but it was real brainwashy. Hang on, I'm trying to think of how to put it." Nanaba was still there on the other end of the line, silent. Erwin could hear her breathing softly into the phone and he noticed for the first time that the youngling was audible too, his breaths heavy with sleep. It was uncanny how quickly kids could conk out.

"You know me, Erwin. I'm not anybody's fuckin' pet, but after some of those sessions I honestly believed that I was. I believed on a fundamental level that it would make Mike happy if I submitted completely to anything that he wanted. Somehow they got it into me. And it's a clingy, creeping idea that doesn't ever entirely stop. I think Moblit feels it too. I've seen it sometimes when he looks at Hanji."

"How did Mike help you?" Erwin asked, swallowing around the dry, uncomfortable feeling in his throat. Maybe if he started early on Levi they could create an inhospitable place for the seeds of obedience to grow. He didn't want to ever see that expression on Levi's face--thought it might kill him.

"He--" Nanaba snorted lightly. "It won't work with Levi. Mike and I were already mated when I went through. That’s how it works most times. Breeders give prospective owners a trial period while the courtship is being decided because no one wants to keep a dragon that won’t bond to them. Mike would have allowed me to stay on the preserve if we turned out to be incompatible, but most dragons go back to their breeders if the courtship dissolves."

"Oh."

"In public we play whatever roles we need to play and just about everywhere else it's equal like a typical human romance. But in the bedroom, Mike submits to me utterly. That's how he did it. He created a place where we were the only authority and then he trusted me to explore a dominant role without hurting him. At first he was only trying to undo the day's obedience training, but we both decided the dynamic suited us. It's too bad you and Levi aren't ready to try something similar. It did wonders for me."

"I'm not sure I like the way you say not _ready."_ She’d said it with an invisible _yet_ tacked to the end like there would be some time in the future for a sexual relationship with Levi.

"If you don't intend to court him, why haven't you told him yet?" Nanaba asked. "You've had a week to do it."

"The opportunity hasn't come up," Erwin answered stiffly. "It certainly can't be today. He'll think it's because of what Grisha told me."

"The opportunity hasn't come up in a _week?"_ Nanaba didn't bother covering her skepticism. "Are you sure about that?"

"It hasn't been the most important of our worries," Erwin answered. "We're working on trying to survive obedience school, which will apparently be difficult without getting into BDSM. Thank you for that mental image, by the way."

Nanaba laughed. "I was trying to talk around it. Admittedly, not hard. The important thing to me wasn't the sex, it was the way it helped remind me that training was where Mike and I were pretending. You need to make sure that your voice is the loudest one Levi hears. Find some way to show him that the relationship between you is real while obedience school is just a lie that you're telling everyone else. I know that's easier said than done, but he's going to need you. It's going to be confusing for him, especially in the beginning."

"I'll see what I can come up with," Erwin promised. "And I'll talk to him before we go in."

"And after," Nanaba added. "If you think you're reminding him too much, it's just enough. I'll be thinking too. Hanji and Moblit are coming by today for lunch so we'll all talk it over. I don't guess Levi would be okay with you two joining us?"

"It's probably too soon," Erwin agreed. "And I think he plans to be in the bathtub all day."

"Poor thing. Tell him you think he's cute or something."

Erwin snorted. "If I don't want to give him the wrong impression, I think that's the last thing I should tell him. Thank you, though, for talking to me about this. I know you hated obedience."

"I'm a natural failure at it," the dragon quipped lightly. "Take care, Erwin. I want to hear how it goes tomorrow."

"Hopefully, it won’t be an interesting story."

Erwin burned away the morning on his tablet researching Grisha's list. Curiosity had him looking first at the ones Nanaba had recommended most strongly against--Sullivan's and its spinoff, The White Flame Society. Both facilities catered to a higher society than Erwin was a part of, selling high quality for high prices. Their ads were precisely worded and professionally presented, the graphic design quietly suggesting extravagance without going over the top. But it was the demonstrations that Erwin found disturbing. No one was punished on screen, but he couldn't help but focus on the riding crop poised in the demonstrator's hand like a waiting viper. Dread rolled through him as he watched the man take a handsome drake through some complex routine in his natural form--something like ballet and dressage and lion taming. The drake changed forms several times along the way, shifting elegantly from one shape to the next so smoothly that the movements blended into each other without ever ceasing or pausing. Erwin hit the back arrow after watching for a few moments in fascinated horror, struggling not to imagine Levi in the other drake’s place, his face as placid and empty as a statue’s.

The White Flame Society was about as bad. He didn’t have to linger long on their site before he bypassed it as well, his curiosity glutted.

 _those expensive places are horrible,_ Erwin told Nanaba. To Hanji, he added the question, _do they do the dancing at every school?_

He searched the two that Nanaba had recommended as he waited on replies. Head Start and Scales & Tails were clearly more modest facilities, offering more practical services. Each site’s focus was geared less towards presentation and more information on the individual classes was provided. The subject matter was nauseating, but it wasn’t quite as threatening as the first two had been. Erwin was glad he looked at the ‘definitely nots’ before moving on to the potentials because both of Nanaba’s recommended schools were deeply undesirable and he would have rejected them if he hadn’t seen that places could be worse. He scrolled through everything, reading instructor biographies, class summaries, reviews from several independent websites. A reply came first from Hanji.

 _Most of them,_ the doctor said _. They’re called forms and the idea behind them is to direct a dragon’s sole focus to their human, who guides them with a series of small gestures that only signify anything to the dragon. Notice how the dragon isn’t looking anywhere else, only at their human._

And,

_There’s also a style of dragon dressage which follows the same principles that equestrian dressage does. The rider’s movements must be so minute that they are invisible to the audience and the dragon must follow those directions precisely._

And,

_Most basic classes don’t get into dressage, though. That’s considered advanced training, and it’s expensive._

Erwin had not been aware that there was optional training or that these places would offer classes that went beyond the basic needs of the DCA. How much training did they think a dragon needed?

 _How did the vet visit go? I have Nanaba on the hands free._ Hanji and Moblit must have already been on their way to the preserve, then. _She’s telling me about the things Grisha shouldn’t have said._

_you aren’t driving while you text, are you?_

_Moblit wanted to drive. He’s had his license long enough, I think, to attempt the freeway. He says hello._

By “license,” Hanji meant the first one--the learner’s permit. He hadn’t been tested yet for the final one and so he could not yet drive without a responsible adult in the car. Erwin wasn’t sure that Hanji qualified as such a thing, but he held his concerns. _hello, moblit,_ Erwin texted back. _drive safe._

 _He says he’s not the one you need to be worrying about. ;D_ The dragon was pursuing his license in part because he feared for both of their lives when Hanji took the wheel. It wasn’t fair to the other motorists, either, he’d said, to unleash Hanji upon them.

 _Levi is going to be hypersensitive about anything you may perceive as a weakness or an undesirable quality,_ Hanji went on _. The allure is a period of initial display. It’s like the opening of any relationship where both parties want to show the other their best traits. Strength and reliability are important to most dragons, so having his health questioned would have been a blow even if Grisha hadn’t called him unattractive in the process. Rude, by the way._

Erwin wondered if that had been playing a part all this time in Levi’s stubbornness with his health. It was difficult to come off as strong and reliable after bleeding all over someone’s front lawn and then waking up in their guest room with an enormous incision down the front of their stomach. Erwin had been taking care of Levi from the moment he arrived, treating him like a patient, like someone with an injury. In Erwin’s defense, Levi _was_ both of those things, but he also understood Levi’s behavior a little better when he looked at it from that perspective. The only way left for him to demonstrate his capability was to show Erwin his endurance--that he could take care of himself without aid and push himself to stay conscious, to stay standing, to keep going. Accepting Erwin’s help with things like walking up the stairs was admitting to a weakness.

And now Grisha had told him that the way he looked was a flaw. Levi may not have known what genetics were all about, but he understood that he was a health concern, that somehow his body bore the signs of thoughtless breeding. He wasn’t the dragon that anyone wanted for companionship and it showed like a neon sign across his imperfect skin.

_grisha seemed pretty convinced about the carryovers being an indicator of future health problems and i surprised him when i told him that you thought differently. how much research has actually been done on this?_

_That’s an astute question. It isn’t a widely researched topic, which is why you’ll see such vast differences in opinion even between doctors. Most valid studies find no significant difference in health between breeding quality dragons and dragons displaying high percentages of carryover traits. Emphasis on valid._

And,

_There was one study that reported higher rates of physical and mental deficiencies in carryover populations, BUT that study was also funded by The North American Breeder’s Collective so take that one as you will._

And,

_But, see, the thing is, Erwin. These traits we call carryovers are all things that humans have attempted to breed out of the genome. We have clear documentation showing that carryover traits were inherent in the original lines of wild-type dragons._

And,

_So before we started all this crazy breeding standard garbage, all dragons looked very inhuman even in their human forms. To me that suggests the opposite is true--that dragons exhibiting carryover traits are healthier than bloodlines that have been weakened by human tampering._

Erwin read through that chain of messages several times as he processed all the information they contained. _so basically,_ he eventually replied, _you don’t think i should worry because science is on levi’s side._

_Yes, exactly. Science got your backs._

_i’ll need to give him more opportunities to do things for himself, then,_ Erwin mused. _or at least try to avoid situations where it looks like i doubt his ability._

_What you NEED to do is find a nice way to dismiss him. Think about it. These things go the opposite way as well. If strength and reliability are the things that Levi is trying to show you, he’s looking for those same qualities in you. And what could be the more reliable than a person who feeds you and nurses you back to health? All the things you’ve done for him that make him feel weak are also making you look strong._

And,

_You know my thoughts on Levi. I don’t think he’s too far gone to be saved and I think you should follow the courtship to its natural conclusion, whatever that may be. You could be missing out on the love of your life by not giving him a chance. That being said, you need to let him go if you intend to. You’re going to be in way too deep if you let this keep going without discussing it._

And,

_Has he expressed interest in your scent yet?_

Erwin took a sharp breath in, recalling the way Levi stood in his doorway after the bleach incident and leaned into his room to smell it--the way he’d tucked his nose into the neck of the shirt Erwin lent him. He’d taken to Erwin’s bathrobes, wearing them sometimes around the house. The detective had assumed that it was all about keeping the chill off his shoulders. Walking around naked was a good way to get cold, even in a fairly warm house. Erwin hadn’t paid much attention to the fact that his scent would also be all over those things.

_he wears my bath robes_

_Jesus. He’s moving out of the allure then. You need to settle this within the next day or so unless you intend to crush him._

_it can’t be today,_ Erwin said immediately. Tomorrow was probably too soon as well, but Hanji’s words chilled him. In too deep. _he’ll think i lost interest because of his carryovers._

_I agree, he probably would. Build him back up, then. I know the way he looks doesn’t matter to you, but he doesn’t know that. Tell him so. Then talk to him tomorrow after obedience._

Erwin privately thought that it would depend on how obedience went, as well. If Levi behaved abominably, he’d think Erwin was ending the courtship for _that._ He would have to play it by ear, but to Hanji he simply said, _Alright,_ and picked his research back up.

Before he made any final decisions, Erwin read everything he could find on both schools. He even went into forums--some of them friendly forums built around the ideas that Erwin shared with Mike and Hanji. They had some good recommendations in favor of Head Start, but that wasn’t the main thing Erwin noticed. There were other people out there who believed that dragons were being treated unfairly. He’d known it intellectually, but he hadn’t seen it often. He got a little sidetracked by one particular site, reading posts that had nothing to do with obedience classes and everything to do with the fact that decent people existed somewhere. But maybe he needed to see that, too.

Ultimately, he settled on Head Start. They seemed more equipped than Tails & Scales to accommodate dragons like Levi who had specific needs. They had more options for personalization available, including a program that was supposedly tailored to the individual personalities of the clients. He and Levi certainly had individual personalities. The class was a little more expensive because it was one on one, but it would be easier on Levi if they could build a class for him that didn’t involve so much immediate interaction with other dragons.

He spoke on the phone to a cheerful young woman called Corine who sounded more than eager to help them find what they needed. They discussed Levi’s “problem areas” and Erwin explained that Levi came from an abusive situation and was not comfortable with other dragons. He thought it best not to directly reference a fighting ring, though it was still important to indicate that Levi’s discomfort with other dragons manifested as aggression. That was probably a safe way to put it. Corine cooed in all the appropriate spots, assuring Erwin that they would work something out for Levi that took socialization slowly.

“We can bring him in around eight for the orientation, if you’re available,” Corine suggested. “The waiting room is clear around that time and I can let our instructors know to keep the halls empty and the doors closed for a few minutes while we walk around. Some of the classrooms have viewing areas situated behind a two-way mirror where you can look in without distracting the students. Levi could watch from there for a while so he can see that it’s safe.”

“That sounds manageable.”

“I know how scary it can be with a rescue. They’re _so_ fearful. But Head Start has lot of experience with these situations and in time we’ll have Levi interacting comfortably with everyone.”

“And you can assure me that Levi will not be directly exposed to another dragon until he’s worked his way up to that point?”

“I sure can,” Corine chirped. “We do this sort of thing every other day.” Erwin could hear the reassuring smile in her voice, but it didn’t take away his skepticism. He would have to talk to Levi about all this, knowing that the sound and smell of all those other dragons would be everywhere in that building even if they didn’t see another living soul. The last time he’d been in the same place as so many of his kin, he’d been chained to the inside of a rotting horse stall, waiting for the next time he’d be pulled out to kill someone.

Erwin did ultimately agree to eight the next morning, though he longed for more time to prepare Levi, maybe drive him around some or sit in parking lots and look at other dragons from the semi-anonymity of a car. There was no telling what kind of a mood Levi would be in upstairs. It was approaching noon and he hadn’t come down to eat. He’d skipped breakfast and seemed well on his way to skipping lunch as well, draining the bathtub several times and then running water again for a refill. Erwin put the kettle on the stove without really thinking about it, his thoughts turning over ideas for all the conversations that he and Levi still needed to have. He almost needed a checklist.

Levi was still exactly where Erwin left him. He rolled into the side of the tub as Erwin nudged the door open, his pink shoulder hunching defensively against the gleaming porcelain.

“I brought you tea, but it isn’t anything new. I didn’t want to open the box without you.” He sat the tea down on the edge of the tub by Levi’s damp hair, but the dragon made no move to retrieve it. “I scheduled an appointment with an obedience school for tomorrow morning,” Erwin told him, sitting down with his back to the tub. “I promise I’m not looking. The tea is by your head.” He wasn’t sure why Levi’s shoulder was that pink--if it was the heat in the water or if he’d scrubbed his skin raw. It was hard not to turn for a better look at it, but he’d just heard the dragon move, seeing his hand reaching for the tea in his periphery.

“It’s only an orientation,” Erwin continued. “We’ll walk around and meet everyone and set up a plan for your personalized schooling and then we can go home. You don’t have to meet any dragons tomorrow, but they’ll be there in the building. You’ll be able to hear and smell them, but Corine knows not to let any encounter you. You can handle that.”

The water shifted as Levi turned to look at him.

“I think you can. Just treat it like you treat your incision and ignore the fact that it’s bothering you. I’ve seen you overcome worse for less important reasons.” He sat there for a few minutes, his ears becoming highly attuned to the small sounds of movement from immediately behind him--gentle sloshes of water and cautious, barely discernible swallowing. He didn’t know what any of it meant and had even less to go on than he did when Levi was in his dragon form. It was a terrible time to say anything that mattered, but Levi needed to hear it immediately. “Hanji told me that there is no scientific evidence to support what Grisha said about your health. They told me there was no reason for us to worry. Grisha is a vet, but he’s also a snob, apparently. I didn’t realize. I thought he was more practical when I met him.”

Erwin stood, wondering if he should add something else. He honestly rather liked the carryovers, thought they suited Levi, but a comment like that wouldn’t be taken objectively until their relationship moved into safer, more objective territory. He couldn’t say it yet. “I would probably exit the tub before you start taking on water,” he said instead, taking the drake’s empty teacup when he set it on the rim of the tub for Erwin.

The tub did eventually drain. Erwin heard Levi get out shortly after he left, once he was safely down the stairs and in no danger of seeing Levi leave the bathroom. But the drake never came down to eat. Erwin waited for a long time. He checked his email, he watched the news on mute, he read Hanji’s book, which he’d taken to calling _Encyclopedia Draconia_. He cooked dinner. Meanwhile, the second floor was so quiet that Erwin wondered vaguely if the dragon had left through an upstairs window. But he heard Levi come down as he was washing up, relaxing a little as he expected the dragon to come striding into the kitchen. The front door opened, but he never heard it close.

He did hear Levi’s dragon form go stomping back up the stairs.

Erwin’s words hadn’t made much difference, then. With a sigh, he went to close the front door before returning to his washing up. Maybe Levi would get up to eat sometime during the night when Erwin wasn’t in any danger of catching a look at him. He’d shown the dragon how to use a microwave several days prior, but the stove was still off-limits until he could give Erwin some sort of verbal confirmation that he understood the instructions. He paused in the kitchen doorway by the light switch and looked back into the dark room before deciding to flip one of the lights back on--the dim ones under the top cabinets. That should be enough to see by.

It wasn’t late, but he still needed a shower himself assuming that Levi hadn’t tempted the water heater to go on strike. Levi’s door wasn’t closed. That was the first sign that something was wrong, because he’d been sealing himself off from the rest of the house at night ever since he learned that it was possible to do so. The second sign that something was wrong was Erwin’s door, which _was_ closed.

Levi’s nest had been moved across the hall to Erwin’s bed. Worse. The closet stood open and all of the clothing inside had been moved to the bed as well, folded haphazardly into the enormous mound that had swollen to twice its original size.

“Levi, why are you in here?”

Erwin hadn’t expected a response and he didn’t get one. He wasn’t even sure the dragon was awake. He was in there. The pile shifted slightly with every breath that he took, giving away his presence but not the status of his brainwaves. “Levi?” he asked a little more loudly, his pulse quickening anxiously as Hanji’s warning came back to him from earlier in the day. _Has he expressed interest in your scent, yet?_

It might not be interest, Erwin reminded himself as he left the room to poke his head into Levi’s. It might be payback of some kind--bed theft and wardrobe raid for a vet visit, perhaps. It didn’t quite ring true, he decided, looking in at Levi’s empty bed and finding the mattress stripped bare. The timing suggested it was a comfort thing. There was no place in the house that smelled more strongly of Erwin than his bed, so it made sense for the dragon to move there if he found something comforting in the detective’s scent. But there was nothing in the linen closet and nothing in the other guest room down the hall. That bed there had also been stripped bare, leaving no place for Erwin to sleep and nothing for Erwin to cover up with if he elected to take the couch for one strange, uncertain night.

“Levi, I don’t have anywhere to sleep,” Erwin informed him. “Or anything to sleep under. There aren’t any more blankets.”

Could Levi even hear him under all that fabric? Some of the blankets flowed over onto the floor, pooling on the rug like the roots of a foothill. It had to be pretty muffled in there.

“I’m going to need one of these.”

The fabric shifted ominously. Blankets and pillows and suit jackets and crisp, collared shirts rolled aside as the dragon’s head emerged, glowering from one fierce eye where it sat in one dark, scaly face. The wooden bed frame creaked violently under his weight as it shifted.

“You got into a _bed_ in that form?” Erwin asked, freezing where he stood at the sheer surprise of finding a fully realized dragon where he did not expect a dragon to be. It was a miracle he hadn’t fallen right through the bed and onto the floor. And then, possibly, through the floor as well. “Shift out of that form before you break the frame.”

Levi growled a soft warning, his eyes on the blanket in Erwin’s arms.

“I’m serious, you’re going to break the bed if you don’t change back. Nobody can see you under _all my work clothes_ anyway.” The growling had not stopped, so Erwin reached back into the pile to retrieve one of the crumpled garments to try and demonstrate his point. “Look, this is not for nesting. This is a shirt. We can switch beds tonight and work this out in the morning if you want to, but I need something to wear tomorrow that isn’t a John Deere t-shirt and a pair of jeans. A pillow would also be nice.”

As Erwin reached for one of the pillows, though, Levi jerked his head sharply and huffed an angry little plume of flame that hit the mattress and bloomed. He jumped like he hadn’t expected it himself, like it hadn’t been intentional, but Erwin wasn’t paying much attention to Levi’s intentions right then. He dropped everything and sprinted for the bathroom, sliding on the rug in front of the cabinets and knocking his elbow hard into the door frame as he came down hard and threw open the door without stopping. He kept small fire extinguishers under every bathroom sink--something he’d picked up from the grandmother who had lived in this very house and said more than once that there were two things you should always keep near to hand. Those were a handgun and a fire extinguisher.

Erwin yanked the pin out and fired.

After that, things escalated very quickly. Levi was caught in the crossfire, letting out a harsh cry as the frigid foam made contact with his scales. He thrashed hard enough that he threw himself into the floor on the far side of the bed, dragging burning blankets with him and rekindling the stubborn flames as he went. He fought like a demon to free himself from the tangle of sheets, shredding what wasn’t burning and clawing himself free in a wild flash of writhing scales and fluffy white fire retardant. He bolted from the room like the hounds of hell were on his heels, colliding with the wall on the other side of the hall hard enough to knock one of the picture frames onto the floor. Erwin vaguely registered the sound it made when it shattered, of Levi thundering down the stairs like an entire herd of spooked wildebeest, but his sole focus right then was putting out the bed before they both became abruptly homeless. He tore the sheets from the mattress, shooting fire retardant at anything that smoked too enthusiastically, and stomped at what was left until he thought everything was out.

The bed had burned down to the dust mite cover, but the mattress itself was fine, protected by a mountain of other blankets. Erwin stood there staring at an entire household’s worth of shredded, smoking, or sodden fabric, his heart hammering in his chest as he waited on high alert for any little fires to pop back up. He nudged the pile carefully with the toe of his sock, setting his extinguisher on the floor so he could peel the mess carefully apart.

He dumped everything into the bath tub just to be safe, sinking onto the edge with a shaky sigh. He’d been obsessed with attic fires as a child, having heard a story of a neighbor whose previous house had once burned because lightning struck their roofline. He’d asked his own parents if their attic was safe from fires, if the same thing might happen to them. He couldn’t sleep until he’d been assured that their attic was completely fireproof. His parents lied to him, of course but he often dreamed of burning.

Erwin wasn’t a child anymore, but he still maintained a healthy caution where house fires were concerned. Jesus, and he was living with a dragon.

One by one, every smoke detector on the second floor started screaming.


	14. Mediocrity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Obedience school teaches Levi how to 'speak.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you [Mandabs](http://harmony283.tumblr.com/) for all the beta things. =D And thank you guys for all the reader things.

Erwin had _eventually_ gone after Levi. First, it had been necessary to go to each fire alarm with a step ladder and forcibly remove the batteries before his alarm system phoned the fire department. He had to call, “I’m sorry, Levi! Don’t swallow the white foam!” down the stairs and hope that it reached him. When he’d finished, his brow damp with sweat and his hair disheveled, he found a very unhappy dragon curled up on the living room floor with half of his body on the sofa and half hanging off, the coffee table nudged aside to accommodate him. He turned his head to hiss at Erwin between his teeth as the detective sat down in his chair by the hearth. Erwin hadn’t even known that dragons could make a sound like that, but those things barely surprised him anymore.

“That stuff shouldn’t hurt you,” he’d said to Levi. “It's just a fire suppressant. It’s cold, but it isn’t corrosive like bleach. You still shouldn’t eat it, though. You didn’t, did you?”

The dragon only glowered at him.

“Do you want me to wipe it off of you?”

Levi hadn’t been impressed with that idea, either. He’d looked over his shoulder at the tiny spot of white foam that still clung to his scales and he hadn’t taken his eyes off Erwin as he rolled over to wipe it pointedly on the sofa.

The drake was nowhere to be found the next morning. Their front door was still closed, so Erwin wasn’t immediately concerned that he’d gone. The bleach hadn't run him off, so he doubted a cold fire extinguisher would do it, but the dragon was most definitely sulking.

“I didn’t think it was possible to lose a whole dragon in a house this small,” he told Nanaba as he set the kettle on for tea, his phone sitting on the counter with the speaker activated. He had a feeling he would need some sort of peace offering when he did find Levi. “But somehow, I’ve done it.”

“Check closets and bathrooms,” Nanaba sighed. “Dragons feel most comfortable in tight quarters when they’re upset. Why did you need to disturb his nest, anyway? I’m honestly offended on his behalf.”

“He took almost every strip of fabric in the house including my good clothes. It was that or go to obedience in my pajamas and sleep under my jacket."

Nanaba tutted. “To seek you out on such a large scale like that after Grisha’s visit, he must find your scent comforting. Sorry, Erwin, but he’s into you."

“Hanji said something similar,” Erwin admitted. “They made it sound less absolute, though.”

“He hadn’t taken your entire wardrobe to bed with him at that point,” Nanaba pointed out drily. She sounded one wrong word away from laughing--something Erwin wasn’t sure he appreciated. He picked up the phone and changed it back over to privacy mode as he left the kitchen to start searching all the closets. “Once a dragon moves out of the allure phase, their likelihood of dissolving the courtship on their own is slim," Nanaba went on. "It looks like you have yourself a prospective mate.”

“How can he decide that quickly?” Erwin asked. “It's only been a few weeks since I first saw him."

“He doesn’t realize he’s decided,” Nanaba told him simply. “It’s just statistics. Most dragon’s feelings start to snowball once they move past the allure. I’ve only rarely seen anything different.”

“If he doesn't realize he hasn't decided, then I can still call it off at this point with minimal damage.”

“If you do it quickly,” Nanaba told him. “Like, _today.”_

“It will be today,” he said quietly, trying to keep his voice down since he wasn’t sure where he would find Levi. The drake wasn’t in the hall closet or the half-bath. He wasn’t in the pantry or the laundry room. That left the upstairs.

“It has to be,” Nanaba agreed. “Would you like me to help with the wording?”

It was unfair of him to hesitate. It was unkind to draw it out. Erwin wasn't blind. Every day he saw a little more of the things his friends warned him about. He could see something changing in the way Levi looked at him, even when he was irritated, and it was something that said he wanted to stay. It was the reason why Erwin didn't worry that Levi was missing. He knew the drake hadn't gone anywhere over a little fire retardant foam, cold as it was. There was no reason for Erwin to procrastinate--no explanation for the hooks of dread that tried to reel his stomach in every time the matter came up. He knew it was unkind to wait--a senseless cruelty that was beyond out of character.

“No, thank you. I think I know what I’ll say.” It was a lie. He had no idea what he was going to say, but it wasn’t something he wanted to say twice or rehearse with Nanaba like lines from a play.

“What are you going to tell him?”

“Would it be alright to discuss it later today?” Erwin asked. “I don’t want to be overheard.”

“Sure,” Nanaba agreed, though there was a shrewdness in her voice that he didn’t like. “You know, no one is making you end the courtship but yourself.”

“I am,” Erwin agreed. “It would be wrong to continue. He’s my witness.”

_“Please,”_ Nanaba snorted. “He’s your witness on paper. He’s also your dragon on paper, but you’re ignoring that just fine. Who cares what he is if you’re interested in him? Are you interested in him?”

“Your opinion on the matter has certainly changed.” It was clear the conversation wasn’t about to stop, so Erwin withdrew to the living room, fairly certain that Levi was not on the lower floor.

“I don’t think he’s likely to kill you, anymore,” Nanaba told him. “He’s definitely fucked up, but he likes you too much to hurt you. And I think you could use that trust you’re building to help him become more comfortable with everyone else.”

“That has always been my goal. We don’t have to be involved romantically to be close enough for that to work. I’m that close with you and Moblit.”

“Erwin. Are you interested in him? Stop,” she said quickly. “I can hear you about to answer. Just give yourself a minute to realize that you’re the only one who believes the bullshit you’re spewing.”

“It doesn’t matter.” None of them seemed to understand that, how much legal power he had over Levi and how much power Levi’s instincts had given him. It wasn’t fair, all the influence he had, the gross imbalance. “Even if I was curious about where this could go, it doesn’t matter. I can’t ever be sure that I wouldn’t be taking advantage of his history and his instincts.”

“Erwin, that makes no sense.”

“Of course it does.”

“No, you’re looking at it the wrong way,” Nanaba sighed. “The courtship drive is an instinct, that’s true, and it’s also true that Levi wasn’t fully in control of the way it started, but who is? I don’t know of anybody who can select someone and tell themselves yes, that would be a smart choice, romantic attraction activate. _Nobody_ does that. We all like who we like regardless of our legal status or our origins. Humans feel attraction, dragons feel the allure. It’s the same fucking thing and you can’t control it any better than Levi can. Hold on, I’m putting you on speaker.”

There was a pause--the sound of a phone being placed on a counter. “More meal prep for the younglings,” she explained. “They're like tiny black holes at this age. Can you hear me?”

“I can.”

“Good. Now, as to the legal side of things, Mike and Hanji had to buy Moblit and me from our breeders. They weren’t fighting us to the death, but we expressed an interest in them just like Levi expressed an interest in you and they purchased the lives of two sentient beings on a five year loan just like you did with your SUV. You know all of us very well. Do you think for a minute that any of that makes our relationships skeevy?”

Honestly, Erwin’s friends were probably some of the most in-love people that he’d ever known. He’d wondered sometimes how Mike and Hanji could be okay with the legal side of things, but he hadn’t ever questioned that the feelings between them were real. He hadn’t ever seen any sign that they weren’t.

“What if you’d never known any sort of human kindness?” Erwin asked her. “How likely is it that you would think you were attracted to the first person you met who had ever been a decent human being?”

“Hmm …” Nanaba mused. “Okay, I can see where that might concern you. The rest of your concerns are ridiculous, but that one actually makes sense.”

“Thank you,” Erwin answered drily.

"Honestly ... I'm not any kind of psychologist, so you'll want to ask Hanji about this, but I really wonder if gratitude or hero worship or whatever it is you're calling the thing you're worried about would make it so far through the allure phase. But that's something you really can't determine until you can ask him, so calling it off before you've talked is ... I don't know. Hasty." Somewhere in the background, a heavy object went crashing into the sink, eliciting some colorful cursing from Nanaba as she moved away to retrieve the item. "Christ, and Mike wanted one of those porcelain farmhouse sinks in here. Do you know how many times over that cute little thing would be broken? Okay, look, you've got a dragon to find and I need to finish up here, so why don't you think over it today and call me back later tonight before you talk to Levi?"

“Sure.”

_“Before_ you talk to him.”

Erwin actually found the drake in his own bathtub with the charred remains of all the fabric he’d left there the night before. Levi must have come back up the stairs at some point during the night, slipping past Erwin where he lay curled under the one unburnt jacket in the entire house. The detective hadn’t been able to find a single pillow that made it off the bed unscathed, but luckily his dresser had gone unnoticed and none of his sweat pants or t-shirts had been affected.

Somehow, Levi had managed to climb fully into Erwin’s tub, though he swelled over the edges, his head folded back over his body and wedged somewhere between the edge of the tub and a leathery wing. It didn’t look very comfortable and he’d obviously attempted to remedy the problem by cushioning himself with Erwin’s bath mats and towel set.

“Good morning, Levi. I know you’re awake.”

The drake issued a low growl, but did not move.

“I’m sorry I touched your nest, but you put some things in there that I needed. And then you set it on fire, so I think we’re even.”

The wing came up, nearly hitting Erwin in the head as it passed within inches of his face. Levi’s expression was clearly disbelieving. The look he gave Erwin’s foam bath mat where it was wedged between the bone of his hip and the tub was pointed.

“Yeah, well, my entire wardrobe and linens are gone and my bed smells like burnt memory foam, so we all had a rough night. We need to hurry and get out of here if we’re going to make it to our class. I need to stop by the store on our way there and buy some real pants.”

Levi sighed and put his head back under his wing.

“I have tea steeping downstairs.”

The wing came back up. Then, the rest of him. Erwin didn’t see exactly how he got out of the tub because he’d already turned around to go start breakfast, but it looked like it was going to be a process.  

Apparently, Levi hadn’t finished letting Erwin know how displeased he was about the fire extinguisher. He finished his own breakfast and moved over to wait for the single strip of hot bacon Erwin had offered as an apology, but as soon as the detective slid his breakfast onto a plate and turned away with the empty skillet he'd essentially signed the food into Levi's custody. It was over before Erwin could turn back around, the dragon standing there licking smugly at his lips. He stared at Erwin, daring him to comment.

From there, he only got more ridiculous. He refused to shift out of his dragon form to climb into Erwin’s SUV, forcing the detective to clean out the back so he could fold the seats down. Then he took his time inspecting the inside of the vehicle for suitability until Erwin told him that if they missed obedience training he’d be flying himself to the next appointment with a GPS strapped to his leg. Levi snorted--much more carefully that time--and slithered into the back of the SUV, flicking his tail out of the way as Erwin closed the liftgate.

“Stay still back there,” Erwin told him. “It’s technically illegal to use your dragon form in public and I’m not sure how the back of an SUV fits into those regulations.”

First, they stopped by a fast food restaurant to replace the breakfast that Levi had stolen. As soon as the greasy bag passed through Erwin’s front window there was an enormous head poking up between the front seats, nostrils flaring excitedly as they got a good lungful of breakfast sandwich. Erwin’s elbow came up at the last second to guard the bag, nudging Levi safely out of striking distance. “Absolutely not. You made your breakfast choices.”

The drake was quick as an adder when he moved to duck under Erwin’s arm, then faked a go at the sandwich and came in from the top instead. Erwin’s egg and sausage concoction barely survived the experience. He had to pull over quickly so he could turn into the window and eat his breakfast without totaling the car and that took even more time that they didn’t have. Erwin inhaled the sandwich and got them back on the road as quickly as possible, but it still didn’t look like they would make it to the store for pants. Erwin wasn’t sure he wanted to risk that anyway just then, frisky as Levi was feeling. God only knew what would happen if he tried to leave him in the car alone. At some point, Erwin thought that Levi's irritation might have become playfulness, but it was difficult to tell once the sandwich was gone and Levi turned, causing the whole vehicle to lurch violently on its wheels as he presented Erwin with his ass and flipped his tail into the front seat.

“Watch the gear shift.” Erwin warned him. "You may just be able to throw it out of gear that way." He scooped his hand beneath the end of Levi’s tail and moved it safely away from the shift.

The tail rolled back over, skipping over the gearshift and Erwin’s thigh and landing directly in his lap like a friendly boa. “You’ve chosen a terrible time to venture into the world of touch,” Erwin noted, picking the tail back up and removing it from his driving leg.

Levi put it right back.

Erwin pushed it off again.

And Levi put it back.

“When someone is driving, you don’t need to distract them,” Erwin told him, removing Levi’s tail from his person and feeling certain that it would be the last time. “It’s dangerous.”

Levi’s tail flopped lazily back into his lap.

“Are you even listening? You are going to make me wreck the car,” Erwin said firmly as he removed the tail again. They were just passing into the city limits where traffic would become heavier. Erwin was generally a good driver, but Levi was testing the limits of his attention span with his antics.

That time, when the tail swung back his way, Erwin was ready. He caught the offending appendage in one hand and dragged it under his leg, effectively pinning it in place. Levi’s head swung around in surprise, a halfhearted bid for freedom giving way to an unhappy huff as he realized that he wasn’t going anywhere without knocking the whole SUV over. Levi tucked his head back under his wing, apparently deciding that Erwin was boring and that he’d get more use out of a nap. Figuring the matter was settled, Erwin turned back to the road.

It was definitely too late to consider stopping for pants. That was clear as soon as he joined the sluggish line of work traffic heading East into the city. They were just in time for the great morning snail race. Erwin avoided the interstates, taking backways and detours that kept them out of the worst of it, but their drive was far from quick.

“Hey Levi, we’re in the city. Have you ever seen one before?”

The dragon sighed like he was being asked to get out and pull the car the rest of the way, dragging his head from beneath his wing to peer skeptically at the world around him. He’d obviously been determined not to be impressed, his eyes already half-lidded and bored as he looked out at the city with its enormous buildings and the shroud of morning fog that hovered around their highest floors. And he continued looking. He craned his head back over his shoulder to see the road ahead of them, his head weaving from one window to the next as he tried to take in everything.

“You’re going to turn your neck in a knot,” Erwin laughed. Levi ignored him in favor of staring.

“I thought that maybe after this obedience thing and a much needed run to Walmart, we could drive around and look at other dragons. You can see for yourself what they’re like out here and they’ll all be in their human forms so that’s not as threatening, right? We can stay in the car. Odds are, they won’t even see us.”

The sound Levi made wasn’t exactly a growl. It was closer to a disbelieving grumble. Erwin wasn’t sure precisely how to interpret it beyond that, but Levi was back to looking out the window. The next red light they came to, though, he seemed to remember that he had a tail. It twitched beneath Erwin’s thigh--possibly an attempt to return feeling to a numbing area, but the very tip slithered to life in Erwin’s lap, rolling like a captured worm. He still could not free himself, but he had a lot more tail than Erwin had leg--something that became abundantly clear as they sat there in bumper to bumper traffic waiting for the light to turn while the tip of Levi’s tail found the hem of Erwin’s shirt and slipped beneath it.

“Levi, _what_ are you doing?”

The drake continued to ignore him, but the light changed before Erwin could do much about the strange situation that was developing along the front of his chest. The top of Levi’s tail reached the neck of Erwin’s shirt and spilled slowly from the hole. “Please stop moving until we get to the next red light,” Erwin sighed, happening to glance sideways at the car next to them where an elderly woman stared at them in horror from the passenger seat, her eyes popping wide as the tip of Levi’s tail found one of Erwin’s nostrils.

_“Levi, for Christ’s sake,”_ the detective cried, reaching up and snatching the offending appendage in his fist and pulling it away from his nose as the drake huffed a smokey laugh. “We are on our way to an _obedience class!”_ Yeah, he was pretty sure that was laughter. He put on the break hoping to let the other car pass, but it stayed level with him as he slowed, the elderly woman evidently instructing her driver to stay with them so that she could stare some more. A younger man was leaning around her, trying to see what all the excitement was about. Positively fed up, Erwin let the car in front of him get far enough ahead for him to gun it, stripping by the elderly woman and sliding in front.

There. That was part of the problem solved. The rest of it was still attempting to free itself from his shirt.

“Okay, it’s time to be serious,” Erwin said as they pulled into Head Start’s parking lot. Levi slipped his tail obligingly from the man’s shirt as soon as he let go of it, looking back at Erwin over his shoulder rather than turn around. “Remember what I said about other dragons being present. You’ll hear and smell them, but Corine has assured me that you will not see them. That being said, accidents happen.” The detective unbuckled his seatbelt and turned sideways to get a better look at Levi.

“You are going to be the toughest dragon in there,” Erwin continued, happy to see the way Levi swelled with pride at the words. “You were the toughest dragon in a stable full of tough dragons and these are not, by any means, tough dragons. If they attack you, you will win, but they won’t attack you because they haven’t been trained for that. They were trained to adorn some misguided people’s living rooms, so you might as well pick a fight with an armchair. Are you ready to go in?”

Levi shook his head.

“Yes you are. If they can do it, you can do it several times better. You have more reason to succeed than they do, and more heart than all of them combined.” Erwin stepped down from the driver seat and went around to open the back for Levi, who slid out quickly despite his stated reluctance. His nostrils flared in the chilly air, catching scents he had never experienced before. There wasn’t much exhaust in the woods, and not much concrete or pavement. Levi held his wings away from his body and kept every muscle tight as they approached the building, looking around at his surroundings. He flinched when a car whizzed past, but he stood his ground as his head turned to watch it go.

“Woah.” The receptionist stood as they walked through the door--or squeezed in Levi’s case. “Dragon forms are still considered illegal in the parking lot,” she told them. “And school rules only allow them in designated classrooms.”

“I apologize,” Erwin said smoothly, his tone shifting naturally into the subtly charming one he used on some classes of difficult people. “Levi is shy. It’s part of the reason we came for today’s orientation.”

“Oh, you’re Mr. Smith. Of course, I called your vet a little earlier to verify that everything was in order. Standard procedure. How old is Levi?”

“I can’t say,” Erwin said honestly. “He hasn’t spoken yet. Shy.”

“Your breeder didn’t tell you?”

“I doubt his breeder knows,” Erwin replied. “Levi is a rescue.”

The receptionist’s eyes turned to Levi, growing a little soft with pity. “Poor thing. Where did you find him?”

“An old stable. I was investigating the area for a police case and he was there.”

“Well, good for you,” she said, looking at Erwin with the satisfied demeanor of a person who was pretty sure they’d identified a decent human being. She beckoned him forward to the counter and passed him a clipboard with a small stack of paperwork and a pen. “They say that rescues feel the deepest devotion. Levi will be a good dragon for you once he’s trained up.”

Luckily, Erwin was able to pretend like he was already absorbed in reading, giving her only a small hum in reply. Most of the paperwork was standard admission stuff--requesting basic information and advising Erwin that the school was free to request Levi’s removal from their program at any time and that Erwin was free to remove Levi himself if he chose. _This is not a binding contract,_ basically. There was an emergency contact form as well as a waiver for any accident or injury that may occur on school premises either to human or dragon as a result of another student’s behavior. Most of it was fairly straightforward and expected, but there was one document that tripped him up. It was the very last one in the stack--something that claimed to be a permission slip for instructors to use something called transformatives on Levi.

“What is this one?” he asked the young woman. “Transformatives?”

“Oh, those are fairly new. Well, not really. It took years to get them approved, but they just recently passed DCA safety standards for use on dragons. All Head Start facilities are using them now.”

“What do they do?”

“Essentially, what it says on the tin,” she shrugged. “If you inject them into a dragon they can’t help but shift into their human form. It’s a safety precaution for situations where a dragon may attack someone from their natural form. The human form is more manageable, you know? They’re less likely to cause any damage. Clients have reported feeling safer since we started using them, but we don’t need them very often.”

“And you say this has been approved by the DCA?” Erwin confirmed, scanning the document for that information.

“Second to last paragraph,” she told him without looking.

Erwin read over the paragraph in question, which gave a DCA certification number, then he read the whole thing again word for word. The receptionist sat back down to wait.

“Does this hurt the dragons?” Erwin asked. “I don’t see anything here about that.”

The receptionist looked at him oddly. “It wouldn’t have been approved if it caused any lasting damage.” _Obviously,_ her expression stated.

“I didn’t ask about lasting damage. If you give this to Levi and it forces him to turn back into a human, would that process be painful?”

She made an uncertain noise. “I don’t think so. It looked uncomfortable the one time I saw it done, but it wasn’t bad. There was no drama. She quieted down real fast.”

“What about allergic reactions?” Erwin asked. “Have any of those been reported?”

“I don’t know,” the girl said. “Corine might, though.”

“Do you know about any side effects?”

She sighed, unable to hide the fact that she was getting the slightest bit fed up by all the questions. “You should ask Corine.”

Erwin paused, his pen hovering over the line where his signature was supposed to go, and he looked very seriously at the girl until she raised her eyes to meet his. “Is there a reason why I shouldn’t be concerned for Levi’s welfare?” he asked, and she averted her eyes again quickly.

Levi reached over and took the pen from Erwin, his top teeth closing over the very top and nudging Erwin out of the way so he could touch the top of the instrument to the paper and draw a squiggly line, his eyes crossing slightly as he tried to look straight down his nose to see what he was doing. He dropped the saliva-damp pen onto the paper when he was finished.

“Um … I’m sorry, Mr. Smith, but it’s your signature we need.” Erwin didn’t entirely hear her, though. He was too busy looking at Levi, who he supposed had just made the decision for himself about whether or not he was willing to risk the transformatives. “Mr. Smith?”

“Alright,” he said quietly to Levi. “But I’m researching it when I get home.”

The drake rolled his eyes, so Erwin picked up the damp pen and added his name below Levi’s messy scrawl. “Are there any more you want to sign?” he asked the dragon, who was back to ignoring him again.

The receptionist took her pen back with a tissue. She dropped both into the trash and lifted the receiver of her telephone. “Hi Corine. Your appointment is here. It's Mr. Smith.” She slid the clipboard around to another section of the desk and listened to the reply she was given before she hung up and let them know, “She’s leaving her office now. It isn’t far.”

In fact, it was barely any wait at all. Erwin had just stepped away from the desk and was looking for a likely chair to seat himself in when a side door opened and a dark-haired woman with very pointy shoes came bustling in to meet them.

“Good morning, Mr. Smith, good morning. Was the traffic terrible?”

“Nothing more than usual,” Erwin answered, catching her gaze as it dropped to the sweats he was wearing. “We were running late from the gym. I didn’t have an opportunity to change.”

Levi snorted.

“Oh, I see, of course. And is this your drake? He’s a handsome boy, isn’t he? I didn’t realize he would be so young.”

“He isn’t. Levi is an adult.”

“--Oh!” the woman said abruptly. She seemed at a momentary loss for words, not wanting to say anything else about it with Levi standing there looking so offended. “My mistake. Well, it’s good to meet you both. And I see you found us okay. Would you like to take a look around?”

“Yes, please.”

“Alright, then, follow me this way.” She leaned over to snatch Erwin’s clipboard from the desk where the receptionist had left it, though they were going through a different door than the one she came through. “That’s administration, that way,” she explained. “It’s just offices down there. This door will take you into the school.” She held it open for Erwin and Levi to precede her into the hallway. “Libby, don’t let anyone from the waiting room come back this way until I let you know that the hall is clear,” she said. before she let the door swing closed. The woman had a very busy air about her--something that Erwin had detected over the phone, though it was heightened now that he could see her and how quickly she moved as well. Levi fell back slowly as she passed, his nostrils flaring.

“Remember, Levi,” Erwin murmured. “Armchairs.”

The drake nodded and pushed himself forward down the hall, though he was clearly uncomfortable with it, his body taut as a bowstring and quivering with tension. Corine’s eyes were on him, too, assessing. There were a couple documents in the stack that had been marked ‘Administration Only,’ and Erwin assumed that was what she bent her head to make a note on.

"Is he nervous about leaving his dragon form?" she asked.

"He feels safer in it." There was no sense mentioning the rest.

"Try to get him to make the change right outside the front entrance if you can," Corine said. "The school can make exceptions but the laws can't. Dragon forms are prohibited in most public spaces, including our parking lot. We tried to get it zoned, but since it faces the street ..."

"I understand."

"I wouldn't want to see you get in trouble over a few yards of asphalt." Erwin didn't bother mentioning that he knew the officers who would be handling his case and they'd be inclined to let it slide. He just let Corine continue. “Okay, this is the main hallway. It isn’t much right now because the building we’re in has some age on it, but we’re expecting to renovate in the spring. It shouldn’t affect Levi’s schooling. Classes will be moved around, but we’re planning it in sections so we won’t have to shut down. He’ll have beautiful new classrooms next--what is he doing?”

Erwin looked sideways at Levi, whose head had come up quickly, his eyes looking a little wild. He clearly smelled something he didn’t like, his pace slowing as he looked around, trying to figure out where it was coming from. Erwin nudged him. “It doesn’t matter. Levi.”

The drake shuddered, but he nudged Erwin back. “He’s fine,” the detective said. “Just nervous.”

“Yes,” Corine pronounced slowly. “Other dragons … you told me.” She seemed a little nervous herself, having seen something in Levi’s body language that prompted her to make another note on the papers in her hand. “We’ll sit down after the orientation and develop a plan for Levi’s schooling,” she said. “Head Start has mastered the one-on-one approach for special cases like Levi’s. Many schools still don’t offer services like those, or they aren’t so well equipped for them, so you came to the right place.”

“It wasn’t an accident,” Erwin replied. “A lot of research was involved.”

Corine smiled. “You want the best for your dragon. That’s good. If there were more people like you in the world I think we would all be much better off. Too many people jump into dragon ownership without knowing what to expect and then end up with a real mess on their hands that they don’t have any interest in fixing.”

If there were more people like Erwin in the world, this shit show would not be allowed to exist and fester. Not anywhere. “What’s on this hall?” Erwin asked her so he didn’t have to reply.

“These are the first of the small classrooms. Activities conducted in this area are all restricted to human-form only. That’s for practical reasons. It’s difficult to handle books and pencils when you’re the size of a garden shed and you’re trying to work around talons.”

Erwin had seen photographs online of some of the classrooms, knowing that there was some classwork built around the mandatory “core curriculum.” It looked like there were heavily edited versions of dragon history, North American history, and training in human culture and customs, modern etiquette. Erwin hadn’t been aware there was such a thing as modern etiquette. There were foundations in basic maths and sciences, even an English class. It was all self-serving, of course. The program was marketed as citizenship training, meant to lay the foundation of a good, well-rounded knowledge base, but to Erwin it sounded like an opportunity to mesh fiction with fact while building a good conversationalist. “I don’t think Levi can read,” he told their guide.

Corine paused. “There’s no telling,” she agreed. “Breeding facilities are required to teach younglings how to read before they’re sold because they hit their critical period of language before they are old enough to be taken home. The youngest should already be reading on a basic level before then. We have a remedial program available, but we would need to consult with an outside tutor and they would bill separately.”

“Let me look into that, then,” Erwin said. Mike and Nanaba dealt with younglings on a regular basis. They may know of someone if they didn’t teach reading and writing themselves. “I would like to conduct some research of my own. If your consultant bills separately, I take it to mean that the DCA does not require that I use school resources for this?”

“Yes, Sir, that’s correct,” Corine told him. “We don’t keep our own staff on hand for basic reading and writing because the majority of our clients have dragons that can already do those things by the time they come to us. You would need to look at the tutors that breeders hire, so for that you can use someone off-site. If you’d like to arrange to use the school’s facilities for lessons, feel free to make those arrangements with the tutor you select. We provide extra classrooms at Head Start for situations like yours.”

They peeked into a couple of classroom windows, looking in on the classes that were in session. Levi looked as well, though he lowered his nose to the floor and pressed his nostrils to the gap at the bottom of the door, growling softly like he couldn’t help it. “Armchairs, Levi,” Erwin reminded him. “Ignore them.”

Levi pulled his head away like he was fighting a magnet, but the growling was slow to taper off.  

As they made their rounds of the school, Erwin had to remind him several more times about the armchairs--something that Corine found increasingly interesting as they continued through the building and it became more and more difficult for Levi to focus on the tour. Erwin could see it wearing on him, the presence of all those other dragons making it hard for him to rein himself in even with Erwin there to use the reminder word, which had unintentionally become a signal between them.

“What’s that you keep telling him, Mr. Smith? Armchairs. What does that mean?”

“It’s a reference to an inside joke,” the detective answered vaguely. “There’s a long story.”

“Yes, I’ve been trying to figure it out since you first started saying it. It’s an odd punchline.” There was a clear invitation there for elaboration, but Erwin did not take it. He pretended instead like he’d missed the hint and Corine did not press. She just turned them around the corner and gestured to the longest hallway they’d come to so far. “These are the large classrooms. Dragons are permitted to use their natural forms here, where the architecture can accommodate them. These are the rooms with viewing areas if you’d like to look in on a class. All along the left is our arena--” she missed the small flinch that Levi gave, but she caught the uncertain look he cast towards Erwin and must have interpreted it as confusion. “--for dressage,” she finished. “That class is more advanced, but it will be available to both of you after you’ve graduated from the basic program.”

“It’s like dragon dancing,” Erwin explained to Levi. “Nothing we’ll be required to do.”

The drake nodded, satisfied with that answer, though he kept a wary eye on the door as they passed it and Erwin shook his head when Corine asked if they wanted a look inside.

“If you change your mind, we can look at it on the way back to the office,” she said, a little disappointment in her voice betraying her pride in their facilities. “There’s a class going on in LG 8, so we can slide in that viewing room for a minute and--”

One of the doors down the hall opened.

Someone stood in the doorway and leaned back into the room, lingering on their way out as they spoke to someone else inside. Erwin couldn’t smell all those dragons the same way Levi could, but he could see them. They were not in their human forms and several of them were already turning their heads towards the source of Levi’s furious growling--a dusky gray and a pale, watery red. They were not hostile--their heads cocking curiously like they didn’t know what to make of Levi’s aggression, but Erwin could imagine that changing, escalating. The red stepped forward, craning a long, serpentine neck around the human that stood in their way to get a better look at Levi, whose back had come up in a dangerous arch, the scales along his jaw flaring out. One of the drake’s wings almost caught Erwin in the head as it opened in a full threat display. It was just like the one Erwin had seen before Levi killed Dorian. He reached up and put a hand on Levi’s quivering shoulder, but he had no more presence there than a ghost. Erwin was gone, swept aside by years of training that had given Levi one simple, straightforward reason for existing.

It had been stupid to think he could walk Levi in here with no consequences.

“Close the door!” he called down the hall. “Now!”

_“Juliette!”_ Corine called, drawing the girl’s attention. She glanced over her shoulder, her eyes slow and uncomprehending until they slid past Corine and landed on Levi. She turned in the doorway to face them, her shoulder making a slow arc as she reached up to grip the frame, but she did not retreat into the room behind her. She stood there instead like she’d wandered into oncoming headlights, positioned directly between Levi and his intended target.

_“Levi,”_ Erwin demanded sharply. _“Look_ at me!”

Who was Erwin Smith to a lifetime of conditioning?

“Levi!”

The drake’s head drew back, the heat blowing off him in waves as something inside of him glowed faintly to life, shining from beneath his scales like the tiniest sun in the universe. And Juliette just stood there in the doorway staring in horror like she had no idea how to save herself.

Knowing nothing else to do, Erwin balled his hand into a fist and swung, throwing his full weight into the blow as it connected with the smaller scales right behind Levi’s front leg. The drake’s head came around so fast that Erwin hadn’t even drawn his arm away before he was being snarled at, Levi’s lip drawing back to demonstrate a few of his many impressive shark teeth. His eyes were not his own. They belonged to the creature that Erwin had met back in the stable--the dragon that had no idea what it was like to sleep in a bed or drink tea or feel his stomach stretch to fullness. “They are _armchairs,”_ Erwin said firmly. “And there is a human standing in your way. They will euthanize you for this.”

Levi looked away from Erwin, clearly unable to trust the other dragons with his blind side. They were more important to him--the only things he saw. “Levi.” Erwin was fading out of his awareness again--if he’d ever been there to begin with. _“Levi.”_ The drake jumped under his open hand when he placed it lightly over the place he’d just hit, but he did not look around, his skin rippling like a horse with an itch. “They don’t matter.” Erwin raised his hand and smacked it a little harder against the dragon’s side, finally getting Levi to look back around at him. “If you attack them, you kill yourself. And what for? Because you weren’t strong enough to overcome your training even to save your own life? I’m not buying it. You can keep going when your body says to stop, so you can stop when your mind says to keep going. It just has to matter enough to you.”

Levi’s eyes darted to the side, still trying to keep track of the dragons in his periphery. When his head started to turn, though, Erwin hit him again--not so hard that time. It was just enough to keep his attention, to make him pause. “Levi, let it go. There is no future for you over there. I can still get you out of this, but you need to listen to me. My voice is the only one in this building that matters. Look here.”

The drake twitched under Erwin’s hand, his head turning reluctantly from the dragons beyond the doorway to look where the detective was pointing--into his own face. “I’m going to take you home, but you need to let that fire go.” Levi stared at him, his eyes steady, intent. But Erwin was steady too. He let his hand drop once Levi’s eyes were on his. “Trust me, Levi. Let it. Go.”

They stared at each other for another long, tense moment, then with a low, rumbling growl Levi’s chest collapsed, the glow fading from between his scales as a wave of blistering heat rolled over Erwin and dissipated into the air. Dark smoke billowed from Levi’s nostrils and he lowered his head and pushed his nose into the front of Erwin’s shirt, tension still snapping through him like heat lightning as he took a deep breath in, trying to drown the other’s scents. “Corine is going to close the door now,” he said quietly, glancing pointedly over the top of Levi’s head at the woman. Her eyes were not on Erwin, though. She was fumbling with something in her hands, pulling the safety cap from the tip of a fat syringe. “Corine.”

The woman stepped forward quickly, determination written all over her face as her open palm came down hard on the back of Levi’s neck. She did something athletic with her thumb, hooking it beneath one of the armor-like scales along Levi’s spine and pressing it in.

Levi dropped like he’d been killed, crumpling to the ground at their feet as all the fight ran out of him in one catastrophic rush. He didn’t even make a sound, just crashed straight down into the floor. “Good work, Erwin!” Corine called breathlessly over the top of Levi’s head. “I couldn’t risk making a go for his neck until he emptied his flame bladder. Did you know that it hadn’t been suppressed? You’ll have to get that fixed before he comes back. We almost had a bad situation, there. Whew.” She paused to catch her breath, sinking into a crouch beside Levi, though her hand did not move from the vice grip she had on the back of Levi’s neck.

“What are you doing?” Anyone who knew Erwin would have recognized that tone. An astute person could have figured it out. Unfortunately, Corine did not know Erwin and was not astute and therefore, she had no way of knowing that the correct response would have been to stand up slowly and back away.

Instead, she replied, “Did you know that you could subdue a feisty dragon this way?”

“I did,” Erwin answered, and there was no longer any way to mistake the warning in his voice. “I was under the impression that it was tantamount to assault.”

Corine laughed breezily, still a little out of breath from all the adrenaline. “I wouldn’t go that far,” she said. “It’s a lot like scruffing a cat and scratching the base of its tail at the same time, although you wouldn’t want to do it for long with an unneutered male or things could start to get a little awkward. Oh, there he goes,” she gestured with her chin as Levi’s hips lifted and his tail swept to one side. She was all lit up as though she’d been giving a demonstration and the timing had been pleasantly on point. “So I guess you haven’t neutered him, yet?” she chirped. Levi made a sound, then, that Erwin had never heard before. It was the smallest whine, undeniable in its nature. And Corine had been right. It was awkward.

“Let go of him.” Erwin’s voice was so cold that Corine looked up at him in surprise. “You’re humiliating him.”

“It’s alright,” Corine cooed. “Just one moment.” She reached around with her other hand and pushed the needle beneath the scale she had lifted, just bypassing the pad of her thumb. She pushed half of the dose into Levi, then stood and stepped away with a smile. “There. He won’t be a problem anymore.”

“Was that a sedative?” Erwin asked, stepping around to Levi’s head to look into his placid face as his hips sank slowly to the floor. “What did you just give him?”

“It’s a transformative,” she answered simply. “He’ll take his human form and then you can either finish the tour or you can take him home to calm down. You know him best.” Erwin shot a disbelieving look her way, unable to comprehend the idea of forcing Levi to walk around this place naked after the way he’d just been manhandled.

“He’s going home,” Erwin snapped. “That was unnecessary. He was calming down on his own. He could have walked out.”

“Nonsense. He obviously has some aggression issues that will need to be addressed, but we have safer ways to do that than allowing him to burn the building down trying to kill our other students. Perhaps we can issue several doses of this and every morning before you bring him in--”

Levi screamed.

It was the most horrible sound Erwin had ever heard, several sets of vocal chords vibrating in unison to produce something so inhuman that it sent chills down the back of his neck. Or that might have been the agony he heard in every note, the way Levi’s body bent as his muscles contracted, cutting off the scream sharply. Corine winced a little, bringing a hand to her ear. “Come on now, let’s be civilized.”

“Corine!” There was a new face in the doorway--a larger guy wearing a Head Start t-shirt over a set of track pants. “Keep that drake quiet! He already has these guys agitated.” Erwin could see some of them too, crowding in behind the trainer and straining to see what was going on in the hall.

Blindly, mid-writhe, Levi ejected a full gout of flame in the man’s general direction, following the loudest sound in the vicinity to its source. It was weak, given no time to build inside of Levi’s flame bladder before he needed it, but it was enough to have killed the man if it had made contact. Luckily, there had been no aim behind the attack and the flames sank harmlessly into the stone by the door, which someone finally got the bright idea to close.

“Good God!” Corine hissed in an undertone. “Step away from him, Mr. Smith, step away!”

“Is that normal?” Erwin demanded to know, ignoring Corine and her sharp, plaintive gestures which requested silence. “The receptionist said there was _some_ discomfort. She didn’t say it would kill him!”

“It isn’t killing him!” she told him urgently, grabbing at his arm and trying to draw him back. “We can duck into the viewing room for a moment. It won’t be long--”

Levi didn’t have much fight left in him anyway--or enough dragon. He thrashed, convulsing violently as his natural form began to melt away, forced into submission by the drug slamming through his system. It looked like it was tearing him apart, his eyes pinched shut, a small flash of red at his nose where the capillaries had burst. He reached up and clutched at his head like he was trying to keep it on his shoulders, his voice harsh and rasping as he called blindly, “Erwin!” It was almost inarticulate, laced into the other sounds of his agony with such similarity that Erwin almost didn’t realize his own name when he heard it.

The second time, he choked on the name, getting out an “Er--” before one of the convulsions hit him hard and the last of his dragon form left him. The detective shook Corine off of him, slipping inelegantly to his knees just as Levi was rolling under one of the solid wooden benches that lined the hallway. Behind his eyelids he must have been able to see the darker shadows beneath the bench, seeking them out with a tiny moan as he flopped over, an uncoordinated mess of aching tissue. His knees came up to his chest.

_“Erwin.”_

“I’m right here,” the detective assured him, watching an aftershock pass through Levi as he grimaced. “This is absolutely barbaric,” he snapped, unable to keep the anger from his tone even for Levi’s sake.

“Don’t touch him!” Corine pleaded. “He’s very unstable right now.”

“No _shit,_ he’s unstable,” Erwin retorted, actually making the unflappable woman flinch. “You just finished poisoning him. What did you expect? A rousing chorus of Ode To Joy?”

Erwin could hear the change in her voice when she spoke, shifting into a firmer delivery like she thought he was being needlessly difficult. “I’m sorry if that alarmed you, Mr. Smith, but I assure you that transformatives are not poisons. I’ve never seen a reaction that violent, but I’m sure it isn’t hurting him.”

Erwin ignored her blathering, pausing to get his tone under control before he spoke again to the drake. “I’m going to carry you out of here.” Levi didn’t respond, so he asked him more directly, “Levi, I’m going to lift you. Is that okay?”

One fierce gray eye cracked open, watery with pain but so full of fury that it made Erwin pause. But he nodded. Rather than drag the dragon over the floor, Erwin stood and lifted the bench, moving it out of his way so he could lift Levi directly into his arms. Somewhere behind them, Erwin could hear a pen moving quickly over Corine’s clipboard as she retrieved it from the floor where she’d dropped it and immediately started adding notes.

“I’ve added transformatives to the list of substances to be cautious with,” she told them matter-of-factly. “I should have used a higher dose. A higher dose would have changed him all at once without giving him a chance to resist it. That’s what he found so uncomfortable--the fighting back--but he’s just so small that I gave him a youngling’s dosage.”

That one made Erwin pause, turning to face Corine where she stood, still obliviously making notes. Levi’s hand tightened in his shirt as another aftershock passed through him, forcing Erwin to adjust his grip to keep him from falling as the dragon arched in his arms. “You give this filth to babies?” he asked, his voice absolutely frigid. Corine looked up, her expression surprised.

“It does no lasting damage,” she insisted. “The DCA has approved it--listed it as perfectly harmless.”

“It doesn’t look any degree of harmless, much less ‘perfectly.’”

“Mr. Smith, I’m sorry it--”

“Levi is the one you should be apologizing to. Or did that not occur to you?” He stood there for a moment, watching her mouth open and then close again like she didn’t know how to reply. “I’ll get you started. The correct answer is, ‘I’m sorry, Levi.’”

Corine looked down at the ailing dragon, her eyebrows lifting minutely as they landed on his hands. She didn’t say anything--knew better than to do so at that time--but that expression was more than enough for Erwin to understand. He wouldn’t have brought Levi back to Head Start anyway, but he was done messing around with this woman. He was tired of looking at her face and hearing the unbelievable garbage that came spewing out of it every time her mouth opened.

“Never mind. Shred your notes. We won’t be using your services.”

“Mr. Smith!”

As Erwin passed her, though, Levi tried to lunge, his teeth bared in a feral grimace as he lashed out with the dark fingernails she’d just been passing judgment on. They nearly caught her across the face. The shock of it kept her quiet long enough for Erwin to reel Levi back in and tuck him more securely against his chest. There were no reprimands for the lunge, though. Erwin thought it was almost too bad he _hadn’t_ taken a little bit of her with him. As they hit the lobby and Levi realized where he was, he squinted into the bright light and found several silhouettes angled towards him--human or dragon, he couldn’t have known with all the blood in his nose. As concerned voices raised in inquiry, Levi pinched his eyes shut and turned, hiding his face in Erwin’s shoulder and drawing his hands to his chest. His knees drew up and he became small in Erwin’s arms, his unsatisfactory toes curling as though he meant to hide them.

“Is everything alright, Mr. Smith?” The receptionist called after them. But the door swung closed before she got any answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm happy to announce that I'm just about done beating the shit out of Levi for now ... I think.


	15. Closer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More aftermath, more close encounters of the draconian kind. Erwin starts to undo some damage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted this up by Friday, but things keep HAPPENING. Now I think I'm getting another cold so I sort of keysmashed my way through the editing process and fell asleep a few times throughout.   
> [Mandy](harmony283.tumblr.com/) is doing a speed-beta as I type this to make sure that I haven't lost control of anything too important, but if you see any stray typos my comment button is burning red hot just for you.

Erwin kept an emergency blanket beneath the floor of his trunk. He could lift a small section to reveal an out-of-the way cubbyhole hidden beneath the liner--something that would have been exciting when he’d been a teenager but now only housed innocuous items like an ice scraper and jumper cables. There was a towel in case of hot steam, a first aid kit in case of injuries, and an emergency blanket in case of engine failure. Erwin did not mess around with preparedness. He’d been taught to hope for rescue and expect abandonment. And there were a lot of cold, lonely roads between his house and the city. 

He eased the shaking dragon through the back door where the folded seats dwarfed him in his curled human form. There wouldn’t be a way to secure him, but Erwin supposed there hadn’t been before, either. He just seemed so formidable as a dragon, like going through the windshield would be child's play. 

"This probably smells strange," Erwin apologized as he reached back into the car to bundle the emergency blanket around Levi. "It's been in here a while." But Levi had no complaints. His fingers simply curled into the fabric and he pulled it up around his face without a word. "Do you need to go to a doctor?" Erwin asked, watching another brutal spasm tear through his tiny frame. He didn't want to subject the drake to Grisha again so soon if it wasn't absolutely necessary, but this was looking serious. 

It was a minute before Levi had enough muscle control to offer a shaky negative, but Erwin expected that. 

"Okay, I'm going to drive us to Walmart and pick up some more bedding, but then we're going straight home."

If there was ever a time a dragon needed a nest to hide in, it was right then. Erwin closed the door and crossed to the other side of the SUV, steeling himself for the slackening morning traffic that would fight him all the way home. It wasn't so bad in the opposite direction, though. Erwin was able to get on the interstate and open it up, pushing the far limits of speed limit compliance as he gunned his way to the first Walmart parking lot he came to. He parked in one of the empty handicapped parking slots, flipping on his emergency flashers without guilt and turning the key to kill his engine. When Erwin moved to open the door, however, Levi pulled the blanket down and issued a sharp, "You're leaving?"

Erwin paused in the front seat. Calling for him in the heat of the moment was one thing, but this was approaching real verbal communication. "Hold on, I'm coming around." He was back at the passenger door in seconds, pulling the door open and leaning into the car to escape the wind. "I'll only be a few minutes," he promised. "In and out."

"I can't defend myself." His voice was gravelly with disuse and the words sounded strange coming out of him.   


Levi's blanket had slipped from one shoulder in his haste to get Erwin's attention and the detective reached out almost absently to tug it back into place. "You won't need to. Dragons couldn’t smell you in here even if they wanted to attack you, which they don't."

The drake's expression darkened, but he didn't say anything else. 

"You could ride in the bottom of the shopping cart if you like, but I can't guarantee there won't be other dragons inside. You're better off waiting here." As Levi mulled it over, Erwin shrugged out of his jacket and draped it over the top of him. He could still feel Levi shaking beneath all that fabric and it made him nervous. "Take slow, deep breaths," he suggested. "We're not ever going back there. We'll find a school that doesn't hire psychopaths." Levi shot him a strange look over the unfamiliar vocabulary, but he tried to do as Erwin suggested, pulling in a slow, unsteady breath. His hand was limp and uncoordinated where it struggled with Erwin's jacket, trying to pull it farther up his body with muscles that wouldn't work right. 

"I'm going to get you something to bundle up in," Erwin promised, his eyes on those fingers. They moved like Levi couldn't feel them. "I'll only be a second."

"One," the dragon counted, his head disappearing beneath the jacket. 

"Funny. Don't go anywhere."

"Funny."

"I'm locking the doors when I close them. You're safe."

He waited a beat for an answer, but he never got one. Figuring that Levi was still working on the speaking thing, Erwin closed the door and locked it just as he promised, speed walking into the store as he dialed Nanaba. It took her a long time to answer--so long that he was getting ready to hang up and try Hanji when the line connected and the dragon drawled, "The frequency of your calls doesn't ordinarily bother me, Erwin, but I just pulled my tongue out of Mike's anus, so unless it's urgent ..." 

"It is."

She changed him over to speaker phone with a sigh and Erwin told both of them as briefly as possible about obedience, breezing in through the sliding glass doors and grabbing a stray shopping cart from the cluttered entry area almost without stopping. He nodded sharply to the greeter as he passed, making a beeline for the back end of the store where he thought the home goods were kept. All the while, his mouth was moving. He gave the annotated version and spoke quickly, but Erwin was deep into the store before he finished. 

"... Shit," Nanaba murmured. For once, there was no humor to follow up, not even the dark kind. "Where are you now? What do I hear in the background?"

"A store, it sounds like," Mike guessed simply. 

"I'm getting new nesting material," Erwin answered, earning himself a strange look from a middle-aged woman as she passed. It was prime time for retiree shopping, housewives and househusbands--people who were on top of their quiet lives. Erwin stood out against them like a sore thumb, clearly rushing, clearly troubled. They looked at him with a sort of detached curiosity, but their refried beans and chicken breasts and cartons of large grade-a eggs called them quickly to their own tasks.

"You're not with him?" The dragon asked sharply. 

"I’m only leaving him for a minute. There's nothing at the house for him to nest with unless he realizes the rugs aren't attached."

Nanaba sighed.  _ "Hurry.  _ It doesn't sound like he's in good shape."

"He isn't. What should I do?" Erwin asked, glancing down aisle after aisle and becoming increasingly anxious about the amount of time he was spending in the store. He hadn't been inside for more than a handful of minutes, but he knew how long a minute could feel when the body hurt. "Does he need to go to the doctor?"

"He needs to go home," Nanaba said. "I don't know much about how transformatives really work. They're new and we don't use them, but if he's having a reaction you'll need to get him home first anyway. Get him comfortable. Assure him that he doesn't ever have to go back to that place. He needs to know that."

"I've told him, but we'll have to go  _ somewhere _ . If it isn't that place, then another."

Nanaba breathed out softly. "Yeah. I'm sorry about that, Erwin. I recommended them."

"You couldn't have known any better than I did. I signed the paperwork. Jesus, I gave them my permission."

"No you didn't," Mike said dismissively. "But it doesn't matter. What matters is that you got him out and you aren't going back."

"You have a small grace period with the DCA," Nanaba suggested reluctantly. "In your case, maybe it's best to use it. You could get to know Levi better, maybe introduce him to Moblit and I over the phone. We could talk before we meet. He could get to know us as people."

"We need to see what Hanji says about it, too, but I like the idea," Erwin mused. He found the aisle he was looking for--the comforters and sheets. Pillows just beyond that. "We just need to watch our time. We don’t have much room for error." He started from one end of the aisle and simply worked his way up, looking at the sheets only long enough to determine that they were the right size for his beds before throwing them into the cart. He also got several extras to stash away in case of any additional pyrotechnics. 

"I’ve had an idea that Nanaba won’t like,” Mike said suddenly. “We’ll need to consult Hanji for sure to make sure it’s safe, but it’s worth considering.”

“What is?” Nanaba asked sharply, knowing without needing the disclaimer that she wouldn’t like his suggestion. Mike was clearly hedging--something he didn’t often do.

“They taught Levi that adult dragons were enemies to be confronted and killed,” Mike began slowly. “But as far as we know--”

_ “Absolutely not.” _

“They wouldn’t have bothered training him to kill younglings,” Mike finished quickly.

_ “No fucking way.” _

_ “Can  _ they even train a dragon to kill a youngling?” Mike asked her. “Their instinct to protect them is thousands of years old.”

“We’ll just have to keep wondering,” Nanaba snapped. “We’re  _ not _ setting the younglings in front of Levi like sacrificial lambs. I’m sorry, Erwin, but I won’t risk that, not even for a good cause.”

“He was able to initiate a courtship,” Mike pointed out. “They haven’t destroyed his instincts. They only trained him.”

_ “To kill other dragons.” _

“Adults. Do you think he’s ever even seen a youngling before? Why would they allow that?”

“For all you know, they fed them to him!”

Erwin allowed them to go back and forth on the issue, realizing he’d paused to listen to them and moving quickly to complete his shopping trip. The detective was more careful with the comforters--gathering the less expensive ones since he was buying in bulk and they might be incinerated anyway. He hoped the cashier had a store coupon or something when he went to check out, but he rather doubted they would. That hadn’t been the way his luck ran, lately. 

By the time he had the bedding situation figured out--including several throw blankets he tucked between comforters--he didn’t have any room left for pillows. It was really too bad that no one had invented a shopping cart hitch. He had to stack his assorted packages of pillows on the platform beneath the cart, wedging them in so tightly that there was no risk they’d tumble out. 

"I'm headed back to the front," he was finally forced to interject. "Let me go so I can push this budgetary nightmare. Would you tell Hanji what happened? I don't want to rehash it in front of Levi."

"I was going to call them anyway to gossip about you," Nanaba stated honestly. 

"I appreciate it. And Nanaba?" Erwin pinched the phone between his cheek and shoulder so he could push the unsteady cart as he spoke. 

"Yeah?"

"I thought Mike made you leave your phone outside the bedroom." 

"Oh. He does. We're in the bed of our truck." She laughed softly into the sharp silence that followed as Erwin realized they probably did that frequently, but she sounded subdued. "Take care of him, Erwin. He's had a very bad morning."

"Yes, he has."

He tucked his phone into his back pocket and the cart sped up, cutting a direct track across the store towards the front. One man actually drew his own cart back when he saw Erwin coming, retreating into the aisle he'd been emerging from as the detective passed. There were a lot of people there for an early morning grocery run. He glanced at his watch as he swung in behind one lady who didn't have a lot of items on the belt, wishing he'd looked at his watch on the way in so he knew how much time he'd been gone. The cashier was sluggish, still half-asleep judging by the significant droop to his eyelids. Erwin unloaded his items as quickly as possible onto the conveyor belt, reaching down to slide the divider between his things and the first woman's. She had noticed his cart by then, struggling not to stare and failing as her eyes darted back and forth between the keypad in front of her and the conveyor belt. She fumbled with her wallet when the total amount was announced, nearly dropping it onto the floor.  


"Did you get a new dragon?" Someone asked him. Erwin hadn’t realized that anyone else had gotten into the line behind him, but when he looked around in surprise there was a young woman standing there with a small basket in her hands. She simply nodded to the overflowing cart. "My aunt is a breeder. I know the signs."

"I see. Yes, he's ... somewhat new."

The woman nodded sagely. "You're doing right. If he's still uncertain that will help him feel secure."

Erwin smiled tightly, unable to offer her anything more genuine. "Thank you."

The girl returned his smile with a brief wave. "You're up." The woman in front of him was gathering her bags. “Now, no offense, but I’m moving to another line.” She gestured to the loaded conveyor belt and Erwin couldn’t find any way to blame her if he wanted to. “I just wanted to let you know that it’s going to be alright. It can be pretty wild at first, having a new dragon, but he’ll settle in. They  _ do _ settle in. It just takes time. See you around the freezer section, maybe.”

Erwin was able to keep the confusion out of his voice when he said, “Nice meeting you,” but it was a near thing. Did he look that harried? He felt vaguely like a new brother or father or husband--someone who had just acquired somebody that mattered to them. Maybe it showed on his face. The cashier--Luke, the name tag read--greeted him nervously and scanned his items with the hyper-efficient air of a person who was trying their damnedest to be nonchalant in a situation where they felt the exact opposite. This probably wasn’t his first unusual assemblage of items, but he rang all the bedding up as though Erwin had presented him with an eggplant and a tube of lubricant. 

The detective did not have the heart or the time to explain to him what it was for. He just bagged his own items without waiting for the cashier’s help, dropping them back into his cart faster than the boy could ring them up. 

“Luke,” he said finally--polite, but firm. “I am illegally parked and I have a very sick dragon in the back seat of my car. Would you like for me to take the price gun?”

“I … don’t think I can really …” He looked over his shoulder--probably for a manager, and shook his head nervously. He did speed up, though, gaining a momentary boost from Erwin’s haste. Together, they did finally get Erwin checked out and he was able to speed out of the building and back into the lot, his bank account swooning. 

Levi flopped over to look at Erwin when he opened the back lift gate--probably wanting to verify that it was him. His eyes looked terrible, Erwin realized, bloodshot and irritated where he lay there shivering in the car. It wasn’t that cold, but Erwin cursed himself for not leaving the car idling. He could have left it running and taken the electronic key. Someone could get behind the wheel, but the SUV wouldn’t go anywhere without it. The blood around Levi’s nose had smeared, but it was still there, still glistening like it was fresh. Those muscle spasms had not been gentle. 

“How is your incision?” he remembered suddenly. “You didn’t tear it, did you?”

“Don’t think so,” Levi slurred, his eyelids drooping. 

“Hold on and I’ll unwrap one of these,” Erwin promised, transferring the bags as quickly as possible to the trunk and setting the last in front of him. It was one of the comforters, a pink and white affair that he properly identified only after it had been unzipped and pulled from its plastic casing, unfurled across the floorboard like a queen-sized banner of childhood innocence. So he’d gotten Levi a Hello Kitty comforter. “I wasn’t looking closely at the labels,” he apologized.

“What?”

“Nothing. We can put that one on the bottom.”

Levi reached out to pull it towards him without any comment, though his fingers fell a few inches short of their mark. With a frustrated sigh, he inched a little closer, the tips of his fingers just brushing the fabric. “Don’t pull at your incision. Let me come around.”

But Levi had the comforter draped loosely over him by the time Erwin closed the liftgate and pushed the cart safely away from his bumper with a silent plea of forgiveness to the person who would have to gather it. At least it was close to the front. “Stubborn drake,” he muttered, stepping up onto his running board to sit in the back. He reached over to take Levi’s shoulder through the bundle of fabric surrounding him, rolling him over carefully to make him into a cocoon as the comforter wound around him. He was scowling when his face came into view. 

“I’m not a hatchling,” he snapped, but he didn’t wiggle uncooperatively or try to push Erwin away as the man tucked the edges of the comforter more securely around him. 

“No, you’re a fajita.”

Levi didn’t know what a fajita was, clearly, so he must have decided that glowering was the safest response, reluctantly lifting his head so the detective could pull Hello Kitty beneath it. 

“Are we touching each other now?” Erwin asked him. The drake tensed a little as Erwin’s fingers approached his face, but he didn’t move, freezing rather than withdrawing from the thumb that brushed over the blood beneath his nose. Erwin came back with the middle knuckle on his index finger, making a second pass and reaching around to wipe it on the inside of his waistband where the blood wouldn’t show. The sweatpants were black anyway. Levi glanced away from Erwin as he returned to finish up, his skin heating beneath the detective’s fingers as he worked. It wasn’t easy to see despite the pallor of his skin, but when Erwin moved and the light spilled past him he thought that Levi’s cheeks were pink. The voice in his head that said,  _ don’t lead him on,  _ was Nanaba’s. She sounded angry.

“Some of it has dried,” Erwin let him know, drawing his hand away slowly. “But a wet cloth will take care of that. One of many reasons to get home.” 

Erwin slid out of the car, his eyes following Levi’s movement when he shrugged his shoulders and tucked the lower half of his face into Erwin’s jacket--part of which was just visible above the comforter on top of it. Guilt followed him around to the driver’s side. 

“Are you still cold?”

“… No.”

Erwin turned up the heat until the inside of the SUV burned hotter than the surface of the sun. Still, Levi shivered in the back, visibly enough that Erwin didn’t have to look too closely for it in the rear view to know that he wasn’t warming up. Maybe it would take him a while, he thought. It was cold out. They didn’t say much to each other. Erwin was busy with an intense bout of mental self-flagellation and Levi was huddled and miserable, his eyes barely open. He would close them for a time and then a tremor would force him to tense and he would be awake again before he even had a chance to succumb to the road noise and the motion of the car. The time between episodes was increasing, Erwin noted, and they were looking less intense. He focused on that for a while--counting the seconds between spasms instead of allowing his conscience to have its way. He needed to be present and available just then. For Levi.

He couldn’t help but compare the trip to their first--the difference between this quiet version of Levi and the impish one. He’d been so frustrated just hours ago, so concerned that Levi would cause them to wreck. Now, he was distracted for a different reason, unable to keep his eyes off the rearview mirror like he couldn’t help but check to see if Levi was still back there. Erwin knew it was impossible--that there was no place for Levi to vanish to--but still he looked. 

When they pulled into the driveway, Erwin did not announce it. The feel of the road changed, becoming uneven as they turned off the pavement and onto his tidy, but rough gravel. He wasn’t able to break the silence that hung over the car, though he started to try a couple of times as they neared the house and rolled to a stop. Instead, he cut the engine and got out without a word, allowing the slam of his car door to jar his stalling voice, the crunch of gravel and the merciless bite in the air rousing him back to life.   


“Do you think you can walk?”

Levi was slow. He moved like he had survived for an eon, easing Erwin’s jacket down so that he could stretch out his neck and peer doubtfully at the  ground. He stared for a long time, processing slowly. “I’ll stay here.”

“Here in the car?” Erwin asked, waiting for an answer and receiving a soft grunt instead. “It’s going to get cold without the car running. There’s no heat.”

“No.”

It had to be the pride thing, the strength thing. Erwin must have embarrassed him earlier, swaddling him like a child, wiping the blood from his face. It had been too much for him, probably, to be treated so tenderly. It was too close to weakness. 

“Every muscle in your body has just been wrung out like a wet rag,” the detective said. “I don’t think most people would be conscious at this point, much less lively enough to be so stubborn.”

“If you try to pick me up, I’m biting you.”

“I don’t think you will,” Erwin challenged. “You have too much self-preservation to let yourself freeze to death in my trunk and you have too much self-respect to crawl to the house.”

“Try it, then.” Levi eyed the man suspiciously as he stepped up onto the running board and climbed into the car to get himself out of the cold. The wind had picked up some since the morning and the sky looked moody, all signs pointing to rain. But Erwin only settled beside him, pulling one leg into the car and leaving the other outside. He made no move to touch the drake.

“I think we need to have a frank and honest discussion.”  _ One of many.  _ “About your responsibilities as a patient and how those may be in conflict with this idea that you need to prove yourself worthy of … consideration.” There. It was on the table, lying in the open for both of them to study. Or maybe for Erwin to study. Levi seemed to understand it just fine. It was Erwin he cocked his head at. 

“I’m already aware of what you can do,” the detective explained. “I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that just a few weeks ago you were the reigning champion in a stable of hundreds. You killed the largest dragon I have ever seen and you were exhausted, malnourished and injured at the time. Since then I’ve seen little things that have only served to drive the point home. I have  _ never _ questioned your strength or your capability. But at the moment, you are alive and you are made of physical parts that have physical limits. You’ve been at the very edge of yours for a while now, but I have enough perspective to know the difference between a pathetic person and a strong person who’s having a tough time. Let me take you inside.”

Levi breathed out, hard.  _ “Fine _ . You fuss like a gravid female.” 

He followed through on his implied promise not to bite Erwin for lifting him, scowling mightily, but allowing the detective to pull him into his lap so he could sit there for a minute and find the backs of his knees in all the fabric. Levi hissed in a breath as the wind licked in through the open door and caught him in the face, turning unhelpfully into Erwin’s shoulder. “Hurry up.”

“I don’t want to be out here, either,” Erwin assured him, finding the right spot for his arm and sliding out of the SUV without worrying about their purchases. He would need to make a return trip for all the bedding, so he left the doors unlocked, but he did close the back one with his knee as he stepped away. The tremors weren’t easing up, but those intense, full-body spasms were. Levi had one on their way up the stairs, but when he tensed against Erwin it didn’t feel as severe as the previous ones, nor did it last as long. It seemed the DCA would be right, Erwin thought dryly. In the physical sense, at least, there would be no lasting damage.

“All games aside, which room do you prefer?” the detective asked. “Honestly.” 

Levi hesitated just long enough that Erwin knew where to turn and there were no protests as he stepped into his own room, angling them sideways to clear the doorframe. “I’m putting you right here until I make the bed,” he explained, letting the drake slide carefully from his arms and into the chair by the window that Erwin hardly ever used for its intended purpose. He often leaned against the armrest to put on his socks, but that was about the extent of it. Levi moved like his limbs weighed several tons, repositioning himself by a couple of inches so that his head leaned into the back, his knees drawn up to his chest as far as the comforter would allow. He was slow to let go of Erwin’s shirt, though gravity somewhat forced him to. His grip hadn’t been strong enough to persist.

“Give me just a few minutes.”

And it was exactly that. Erwin took a laundry basket out to the car and stacked all the sheets in the bottom, followed by as many of the throw blankets as he could fit. On top of those went a couple of pillows, another beneath his free arm. He had to make a couple of trips for everything, but he was quick about it and before long there was a messy pile of bedding just inside the front door. Erwin took the laundry basket up first, dumping its contents into the floor before heading back down for the rest. He didn’t quite get everything in that second trip, but it wasn’t all going to the same place anyway. 

There wasn’t any conversation while Erwin worked. He unzipped packages and threw sheets across the bare mattress, then added blankets and two comforters not including Levi’s Hello Kitty one. He was too busy to feel the silence, but he was aware of the drake’s eyes on him, watching sleepily from the chair with no uncertainty at all. He didn’t care if Erwin knew he was watching or not. When the detective looked up, Levi did not jump or glance away like he’d been caught. He simply looked back at Erwin over the mound of comforter until the detective returned to his task. 

“You look like a garden snail.”

Levi shifted, going to a great deal of trouble to extract one of his arms so he could demonstrate his understanding of how the middle finger worked. Erwin didn’t quite have it in him to laugh, but he did drop one of the throw blankets over Levi’s head as he passed. 

“They don’t smell right,” the drake said after a little while in reference to all the fabric Erwin was unwrapping. 

“It’s the dye,” Erwin answered, tossing the final comforter across the bed. “Most things need to be cleaned before you use them because the extra chemicals need to be washed out. It shouldn’t hurt you for just a few hours, but I’ll start washing some of these others and we can trade off in a little while.”

Levi raised his arms obligingly as Erwin approached, allowing the man to pull him to his feet and catch him when his knees did not hold. He cursed quietly into Erwin’s ear, but consented to being settled into the bed, tucking himself into one of the pillows as Erwin built the nest up around him. “There,” the man said, his eyes on the outrageous mound that had formed over the top of Levi. “Now you really do look like a snail.”

“Fuck off,” the drake mumbled contentedly, his eyes sliding shut with an inaudible sigh. 

“I know you’re ready to sleep,” Erwin apologized. He eased down onto the edge of the bed and only then did Levi crack his eyes open, knowing the detective had something to say to him. “But before you do, I wanted to apologize for my part in what happened this morning. I shouldn’t have signed that paperwork without knowing what it was exactly that I was signing. I should have stopped Corine the minute she put her hand on you. I’m sorry.”

Levi waited until Erwin was finished before he spoke, his eyes awake and intent. “I agreed to it, too. If you want to blubber all over me, that’s fine, but you don’t need to. I’ll be okay once I’m out of this ugly-ass body.”

That word choice gave Erwin pause. “What Grisha said the other day,” he began slowly. “Did that upset you?”

“What did he say? I don’t remember.”

Erwin understood what he meant and he didn’t press. 

“I’ll accept the bed theft,” he told him instead as he stood. “But don’t sleep here in your dragon form. The bed frame isn’t designed to hold that much weight and I promise I won’t look at anything you don’t want me to. Do you want the lights off?”

Levi nodded. 

“If you break my bed frame, Levi, I’m making you into a pair of boots.”

“They’d be good boots,” the drake murmured into the dark. Erwin breathed a short laugh, his hand on the door knob getting ready to close it, when a soft, “Erwin,” made him pause. 

“Yes?”

“Would you make more noise downstairs?” Levi asked. “Just for a while.”

“Why?”

“I like it. It feels normal.”

Erwin couldn’t immediately answer. It was an unusual request. He stood there for a moment roughing it out, watching the dark, unmoving shape that indicated Levi’s position in the bed. “I have some reading to do,” he answered experimentally. “But if it wouldn’t disturb you, I could do it up here.”

“If you want,” the dragon answered just as neutrally. 

“Alright, give me a minute.”

Erwin found Hanji’s  _ Encyclopedia Draconia,  _ but he also took the paperback he’d been neglecting in favor of more productive activities like research and work. He could end up reading a chapter or two. If not, it would give him something to stare at thoughtfully when his thoughts inevitably wandered back to the multitude of predicaments that plagued them. 

“I’ll need a light,” he warned Levi, reaching for the lamp by the bed and giving the drake a minute to close his eyes before he flipped it on. Levi squinted at him blearily. “Is this alright?”

“Right now, I’d sleep through the house falling down.”

The corner of Erwin’s mouth twitched upwards in a smile. He took a few of the extra pillows from the laundry basket where he’d left them and he piled them against the headboard to lean into, keeping to the farthest edge of the bed so as not to disturb Levi’s sleep. Despite what he said, Levi was an incredibly light sleeper. When they shared the living room and Levi fell asleep to Hallmark-toned background noise, the sound of Erwin getting up or sitting down in the chair by the fireplace tended to wake him. It was incredible that he could pick out the difference between a real sound and a recorded one in his sleep like that.

Levi put his palm on the bed and pushed himself into a boneless roll, grunting as he settled just inches from the outside of Erwin's leg. The tip of his nose nearly brushed Erwin's hip--nearly, but not quite. He'd taken the pillow with him so he bowed around it like a turtle shell, the fingers on one hand still clinging lightly to the outside. Well, alright then. 

Should he acknowledge that, Erwin wondered, or should he act as though nothing had happened? The drake’s breath warmed Erwin’s skin through his sweatpants, the rhythm deep and slow as though he slept. He couldn’t have fallen asleep that fast, could he? It was difficult to tell. Levi’s hair was a mess, partly obscuring his face. 

Erwin let go of his book and reached over to brush his thumb over Levi’s temple. It was different when he knew that the drake was probably awake, but they were touching each other now, apparently. Levi didn’t open his eyes, but he drew in a small breath and didn’t let it out again, holding it in his lungs until Erwin lifted his hand and he finally released it in a slow sigh. He was awake, then. Erwin wasn’t sure what that meant, if it was discomfort or contentment, but Levi didn’t move away from him. He didn’t tell him to stop and he didn’t ask him to continue. He did shift his weight a little, bringing his forehead into contact with Erwin’s hip like he was using the man to block out the ambient light. Erwin took it as an advance--that single inch of sought after contact representing a world of difference between day one and today. It hadn’t been long ago. 

Erwin returned his hand to Levi’s head, smoothing his rumpled hair back and letting his fingers relax over his skull. That time, when Levi shivered, it didn’t have anything to do with the transformatives. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay brb I need to sleep


	16. Heart To Heart, Toast To Toilet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erwin finally initiates a long overdue conversation, the box of tea is finally opened, and Levi eats some more things that he probably shouldn't. And it isn't even 10am.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for the title. This chapter also felt really short to me, but I don't want to break Hanji's visit up because I am TRYYYYING to get to some AAAAACTION. jkhugkfjgjh. I decided to go ahead and post this now because I'm not sure what the rest of my day is going to look like. We had a "Snowpocalypse" a couple years ago that started out like this (damp, but unassuming) and if I get stuck at work over the weekend because of three inches of snow and I have to sit there and think about how I didn't get this up in time I'm gonna be hella pissed. Happy early weekend, etc. I hope all your schools close and you can spend the day inside. =3 
> 
> Thank you, as always, to [Mandinkle](url) for the beta-read. 
> 
> AND THANK YOU CHERRY FOR THE ART. Guys, guys, guys, if you haven't seen it yet SCROL SCROL SCROL.

Levi rested through the remainder of the day, sleeping off the brutality they’d inflicted upon him at Head Start. As far as Erwin knew, he kept on going straight through the night as well. He never heard Levi stir, though the last of the muscle spasms had long ceased by the time Erwin climbed off the bed and left Levi to his slumber, so he wasn’t concerned that the drake was having a reaction. He _had_ started to wonder by the next morning if they were looking at another recuperative coma, but he heard feet on the stairs sometime around nine--something he hadn’t realized he’d been listening for until he felt himself relax.

“No one is here,” he called when the footfalls paused. “Someone delivered some case files earlier this morning, but they didn’t come into the house.”

Levi’s sleep-mussed head appeared suspiciously around the corner, where he found Erwin sitting on the floor in front of the sofa with the coffee table set aside to make room for a wide semi-circle of folders surrounding him. As promised, he was alone. “How many someones? Dozens?”

“Just the one,” Erwin promised. He raised one of the manilla folders to his nose, but he only smelled cheap copy paper and toner from the printer. “There have probably been a few hands on these, though.”

“Dozens.” Levi glanced down the hall like he half-expected to find that they’d all trooped in behind him while he’d been talking to Erwin, but his shoulders loosened and he stepped finally into the room. He’d wrapped one of the throw blankets around himself, managing to casually conceal all of his carryover traits within the loose folds. It was large enough that it pooled around his feet, his hands bunched into the fabric and tucked somewhere on the inside. “I want bacon,” he announced.

Erwin raised a pointed brow. “And good morning to you.”

 _“Good_ _morning_ , squishy, vulnerable provider of bacon,” the drake corrected. When he stepped forward, Erwin found that he was wearing socks over his imperfect toes, though how he’d known where to look for them, Erwin wasn’t sure. Levi had really taken Grisha’s censure to heart, then. It was another thing they would have to unravel--another weight that should not have been placed on Levi’s mind in the first place. But for the time being, Erwin simply set the current folder aside and stood to follow Levi into the kitchen where the drake was already filling his kettle under the tap.

“You said you would show me how to use a box cutter,” the dragon reminded him. The tea they’d ordered was still sitting there on the counter, long overdue to be opened. Erwin changed directions and went for the junk drawer instead of the refrigerator, pulling the simple tool from one of the overflowing dividers. It was ancient--Erwin wasn’t entirely sure how old it was. He remembered having it in the house when he’d been a boy.

“You need to be careful with these. They don’t have the fancy safety features that they’re probably supposed to, now.” Erwin held the wafer-thin rectangle up for Levi to see, then put one end on the counter and pushed down, causing the blade to slide out. “From here, use your best judgment. Don’t cut towards yourself, don’t get your hands in the way. Don’t cut towards friends and neighbors.” Erwin slid the blade along the packing tape at the top, then along the sides. “When you’re finished, remember to close the blade. Turn it over like this and push it back in the same way you got it out.” He pressed the top of the blade into the counter, then pushed down until it disappeared into the sliding sheath. Levi left the kettle on the stovetop for Erwin to turn on and padded over to look into the box, standing on his toes to see over the edge.

While the drake unpacked small bags of tea onto the counter, Erwin got their breakfasts going, pulling a tupperware container of organ meat for Levi, preparing an iron skillet for eggs and bacon for himself. He turned the burner on for tea, glancing over occasionally to take note of Levi’s progress. He moved slowly, treating the bags with the sort of deep reverence that people reserved for grandmother’s china or injured humming birds or holy artifacts. When he finally pulled the heavy iron pot from its own little box at the bottom, the detective turned around to monitor Levi’s first boxcutter encounter, plopping a dollop of butter into the skillet and leaving it to melt.

Erwin was almost shocked to see that everything went well. There was no blood, no cries of pain. Their morning would not be spent awaiting Grisha to come and deliver sutures. Maybe their luck was finally turning--at least in the bodily harm department. Still, he didn’t turn back to the butter until he saw the blade slide safely back into the sheath. Only then did he relax.

Without prompting, the drake moved over to the sink to wash the pot, turning it over in his hands and looking at it as he waited for the water to heat. He carefully angled his back so that the detective could not see his exposed hands, but Erwin could imagine him touching the raised bamboo shoots, running his fingertips over the pattern of leaves.

“Do you still like it in person?” Erwin asked him.

“It’s beautiful.”

It all felt so domestic to Erwin. He wasn’t accustomed to having someone around the house this way. He had people over, sure. His friends visited all the time, his oldest friends and his newer ones from work. He’d even opened his home once to one of the guys from the precinct when his girlfriend temporarily booted him out of the house. Those visits had been nice--they kept the place lively--but there was a difference in the note of metal on metal as Levi set the teapot on its matching trivet. This was something more akin to the familiarity he’d grown up with, the everyday sounds of a household.

“Hanji is coming over this morning,” Erwin told Levi. He’d returned to the opposite counter to open each bag of tea for an olfactory inspection, but he paused to look over at Erwin when he made that announcement.

“Your friend from the stable.”

“Yes, that’s the one. They wanted to meet you. We also need to sit down and discuss our options for how to move forward with obedience training. I know it’s probably too soon, but we don’t have long to get that sorted out.”

The drake nodded slowly. “Hanji … they? … seemed alright.”

“They,” Erwin agreed.

“Is there another human sex?” Levi asked. “Apart from the two?”

Erwin hadn’t really been prepared for the question. The answer was at least one textbook long. Hanji had explained it multiple times, the way dragons had trouble with the concept of gender identity--or gender at all really. They understood physiological sex, but psychologically, they were all so remarkably similar that their culture had never applied _roles_ to each sex. _Females bring the eggs, males bring the sperm_ was about as detailed as it got, so trying to explain sex versus gender to a dragon was only a little less difficult than trying to describe the color blue to a person who had never seen it before.

“There are only two human sexes,” Erwin answered. “But it doesn’t work the same way as it does with dragons. You guys are all roughly the same, roughly equal. If I called you a she, all that would mean to you is that you lay eggs, right?”

“Or that you overlooked the dick hanging between my thighs.”

Suddenly it was impossible to overlook the dick hanging between his thighs. Erwin had gotten so used to the drake's nakedness that he barely thought of it anymore--he didn't have to tell his eyes not to drop. Until right then.

“That’s what it would mean from a dragon’s perspective." Erwin went on carefully. "If you were human and I called you a she, there would be a lot of cultural meaning attached to that pronoun. It isn't simply a biological description. I'm sure that Hanji would be thrilled to explain it all properly."

Levi's eyes narrowed suspiciously. He didn't know Hanji, but he knew Erwin well enough to understand that there was something dangerous in the way he said 'thrilled.' "I'll just take your word for it and call them 'they.'"

Smart dragon.

Levi got one slice of bacon to himself--Erwin was sure to eat his before the drake could snag it. "You're not supposed to have it at all," he said in response to the dragon's scowl. "Next time Grisha looks at your blood work he's going to wonder what I've been doing to you."

"Treating me right." Levi reached over and plucked Erwin's hot toast from his plate as soon as it came out of the toaster oven, butter still sizzling on top. He barely acknowledged the fact that it should be burning his fingers.

"That isn't dragon-safe toast," Erwin warned him, though Levi was already turning away, a bite of it in his mouth. "Mike and Nanaba advised against grains."

Levi shrugged, disinterested in what they had advised, and pulled himself up into the chair at the counter.

"It's your stomach to do what you want with." Erwin went to make himself another piece. "You remember where the bathroom is? I doubt you'll make it to the woods once it hits your system."

Levi glanced doubtfully at the last bite of toast in his hands, but he must have decided that he was invested at that point because he threw the morsel into his mouth. "I'm not going to shit on your carpet," he said finally. "Or anywhere else in your house."

"The toilet would be acceptable."

Levi made a small sound of disgust, but he did not offer any further comments on the subject. He simply ate the rest of his breakfast and moved around to the sink to clean up after himself, taking Erwin's plate as well before the man had even finished putting the last bite of egg into his mouth.

"Would you like the fork?" the detective asked dryly.

"No, you can wash that yourself. And your mug."

"I haven't finished with my mug," Erwin told him, noting that the drake finished very quickly with the dishes as soon as he came close, turning away to wipe his hands on a dish towel. Erwin did clean his own fork, catching a flash of black from the corner of his eye when Levi went to tuck his hands back into the blanket. The horror on his face when Erwin rinsed the mug to use it again, though, was comical.

"Stop looking at my mug like it's carrying the plague."

"Stop allowing the plague to fester in it and I'll stop looking." Levi reached out and took the cup from him, wrapping his blanket-clad fingers around the glazed ceramic and turning back to the sink. "Get a clean one."

"That one was clean." But Erwin did as he was instructed, pulling a fresh mug from the middle shelf where he kept them and returning to the coffee maker to fill up. He preferred it black with a little sugar, but Levi was just finishing up with the mug by the time he finished pouring his second cup and he knew that if he got a spoon out, Levi would feel compelled to wash that too. He’d gotten almost obsessive about cleanliness since he realized that everything in the house could be tidied, folded, sterilized, put away. Erwin hadn’t ever been a slob, but his house had never looked as perfect as a model home either. It was something that Levi clearly needed. Erwin could see the satisfaction he derived from having everything in order, everything clean and habitable. His showers were always long, usually followed by a bath when the water began to cool.

Levi followed Erwin into the living room when he went. "What were you doing?"

“The precinct provided me with transcripts from the interrogations. We don’t transmit detailed case information electronically, so this is my first time seeing a lot of what was said. It sounds as though they’re wrapping up with most of the testimonies as well.”

“Not all of them,” Levi answered neutrally. Erwin raised his eyes to meet the dragon’s. He’d taken Erwin’s chair since the detective’s back was to the sofa and his case files lay all over the landscape like land mines. He looked down at Erwin with the steady-eyed expression that he wore when he was looking for something.

“No,” Erwin agreed. “There’s still a ways to go. It’s too bad that you’re feeling so uncooperative.” He raised a pointed eyebrow, waiting to see if Levi would pick up on his meaning. The drake’s eyebrows pinched inward, but it took him a minute to reply.

“I have seen the person you’re looking for. I know both of his names. I’ve also been to another stable that it doesn’t sound like you’ve found. If I told you all these things, they would help you with your case?”

“They would close it. If we could find the other stable and connect the ringleader to that location, things would end quickly.” And so would Levi’s usefulness to Erwin’s precinct. It was too soon for that--just a handful of weeks too soon.

“If I told you now, would you have to tell them?”

“Yes,” Erwin said seriously. “I would.”

“In that case, you’re right. I’m feeling very uncooperative.”

The corners of Erwin’s mouth turned up. “I’ll let Zackley know when I give him my next update.”

Levi didn’t answer. He slid from the chair instead, joining Erwin on the floor across from one of the piles. The red folders were the files they’d put together on each of the dragons from the stable--all of them, including the ones that had been put down the same night they found them. Most of those folders contained photographs, though they had also included the notes they’d found on their stall doors. Some of them already had autopsy reports, but they hadn’t all been done yet. There were a lot of bodies for their coroners to go through. “What do the symbols mean?” Levi asked.

“The single diagonal line marks the dragons that never left the stable,” Erwin said carefully. “The folders with X’s are for the ones that we brought in for interrogation and … finished interviewing. Blank folders are the ones that remain in holding.”

Levi glanced over at the short stack of blank folders. It was much smaller than the rest. “There aren’t many left.”

“No. Just a handful.” Erwin wondered if Levi would mourn for any of them--if he wanted to know which of them still lived. “Were any of them your friends?”

“Friends?” Levi looked up like he hadn’t expected the question, a touch of disbelief in the question. “No, that would have been stupid as fuck. Any of us could have been opponents so we were all enemies.”

It was no wonder most of them were completely unhinged, unable to interact on a basic level with another living being. All of them were fearful. Some of them lashed out, some of them cowered. Many of them couldn’t speak at all. There hadn’t been much in the transcripts so far--just more evidence of lives that had been horribly misused. By the sound of it, Levi was the most stable of all the dragons they’d encountered that night. He probably had his history to thank for that. Whether or not it had added to his suffering, that family that returned Levi to the stable had also saved him. That little bit of early socialization had made all the difference in the world.

Levi chose one from the pile marked with X’s, his mouth pressing into a thin line as he opened the cover and looked at the first photograph. Erwin did not stop him. If Levi wanted to look back over all those broken bodies it wasn’t Erwin’s right to deny him. This had been his life, after all. The drake snorted softly.

“It’s no wonder you crossed him off,” he said. “This guy was insane. He would lose his shit in the ring, too, and become totally unpredictable. He was one of the better fighters.” Probably because his opponents had been overwhelmed, Erwin thought. He’d read the transcripts for that drake already. They’d euthanized him right there in the interrogation room because he’d pinned an officer to the floor and got his teeth into the man’s face--presumably trying to tear it off--and he’d been too out of control to safely move back into holding. He hadn’t spoken a word of English. He’d only screamed at them right up until the very end, thrashing like a creature possessed. Levi flicked the folder shut and returned it to the right pile without finishing it. “Is my folder in there?” he asked, straightening the messy stack with hands still wrapped in fabric.

“Somewhere,” Erwin answered honestly. “In the blank pile.”

Levi nodded slowly. “Did they take photographs? I … can’t remember.”

“They would have,” Erwin said. “We documented everything.”

“You haven’t looked?”

Erwin shook his head. “I remember well enough without needing to see it again.”

Levi reached out for the pile, but he only straightened it and set the stack back down without opening any of the folders. He moved around Erwin in a semi-circle, slowly tidying up. When Erwin added the folder he’d been looking at back to the stack of X’s, he was careful to line it up evenly with the others.

For a while they were silent, each preoccupied with his own thoughts. When Levi was finished straightening everything, he leaned back and sat there, unmoving, like he wasn't sure what to do next. Erwin wondered if he felt a sense of loss. They hadn't been friends--they'd killed each other--but they were all there together. The last of those who had shared Levi's life, Levi's horror, were assembled there in a tiny pile on Erwin's living room floor. He'd held them in his hands and felt how light they were. Whether he ever spoke to them or not, whether he loved them or he hated them, it must have felt a little bit like being the last of his kind. Who else was there but the sweet-tempered, breeder-quality creatures that surrounded him? Those dragons would not understand him. They would not relate to him. They might as well have been a different species altogether.

But life did not stop. Erwin looked up at the passive face across from him and realized in that moment of stillness that it would be like this for a long time. Levi had been injured, insulted, heartbroken. Now he was feeling something else that Erwin could barely fathom. It wasn't getting any easier and it wouldn't _get_ easier in the next handful of days just because they had a schedule to keep and pressing matters to address. There was no good time to tell Levi that he didn't intend to court him. One look at his wrapped up hands could tell him that. It was time to consider which would do the most damage--waiting too long and allowing Levi's feelings for him to deepen or telling him now while he wasn't at his emotional best. To Erwin, the answer was clear. He couldn't cause Levi any more pain that might be avoided.

"Levi?" Erwin began. "About this courtship."

The drake's eyes shifted sideways to look at him, but he didn't turn his head or reply, his shoulders becoming rigid under Erwin’s scrutiny. _I care about you, just not in that way._ It would be something along those lines, but Erwin hadn't rehearsed it. He didn't know how it would come out. He sat there for a minute watching the defensive scowl crawl over Levi’s face and he knew that this wasn't about to be news to Levi. He’d seen it coming. How long had he expected Erwin to dismiss him?

"I'm not going to lie to you about how uncomfortable all this makes me--the legalities we've been looking at. I have never wanted a dragon." Levi's mouth thinned into an unhappy line, his hands closing into fists somewhere in the blanket that he was suddenly tucking more closely around him. There was something else Erwin meant to say. The words were forming as he spoke them, ready and lined up for delivery. They were kind. They would let him down easy.

"I'm not rejecting you," was what Erwin said instead. "I want to consider your suit, but I also don't want a pet."

"I don't want to _be_ a pet," Levi snapped.

"How about a partner?" Erwin asked. "I never wanted to own a dragon, but I’m hardly opposed to a relationship. I want to get to know you. I want to see how we work together and where this could go. I'm assuming you intend to do the same?"

"You're interested in me." Levi didn't sound certain of that. It was a question as a statement, his voice flat with disbelief.

"I'm fascinated by you," Erwin assured him. "You and I are on thin ice here for a number of reasons. There are a lot of reasons why it's probably wrong to let this continue. You're my witness in a major case, you're in my protective custody, you're still recovering physically and psychologically from things that it's miraculous you can recover from at all. I don't want to take advantage of you or your situation. I meant to turn you down today because I thought it would be the healthiest thing to do, but I don't think I can."

"Is that your way of asking me to do it for you?" Levi asked him sharply.

"No. I'm trying to say that in spite of all the reasons why the most appropriate thing would be to end this, I don't want to." And god help him, he'd known it for as long as he'd been been putting it off. "I was hoping to assure you of my interest."

"Shut up, then. As far as I'm concerned it couldn't be simpler. I want to court you, you're saying you want to court me. So we court."

"How do we start?" Erwin asked. "Do we do something specific to move out of the allure or does it just happen?"

That one did make Levi hesitate--look away. "I ... don't know. I don't know the steps."

"We can make our own steps, then. It's okay."

Levi was shaking his head, though, turning back to Erwin with something unfathomable in his expression. "It isn't okay. I want to do it the right way. It's important."

"I can ask around, then," Erwin promised. "I know at least two dragons who completed a courtship. They've been all the way through so they can tell you all about it."

Levi nodded. "Over the phone?"

"At first. We can call them after the work day is done. It'd be a good way to start a conversation."

Levi nodded again, but he stood abruptly like he was preparing to leave. "I think I need to borrow your inside toilet," he announced. "Just this one time."

"You remember how to use it?"

"Maybe. We're going to find out." He stopped himself, though, as he bustled from the room, turning reluctantly like he wasn't sure he wanted to say what was on his mind. "Erwin? When you were at the stable that night did you find a small human girl with red hair and a guy about ..." He held up a hand to demonstrate. "This tall? His hair would have been the color of wood."

Erwin was able to shake his head immediately. They had only arrested a few that night and a few the nights following when stable hands trickled in for their shifts. None of them matched Levi's description, though. No one had been female and he wouldn't have described any of the men as having hair the color of wood. "We don't have anyone like that. Why?"

"Nothing. They were decent people, that's all. I wondered what happened to them." Levi offered him a nonchalant shrug as he turned. "Never mind, I need to go shit my toast. See you in a few days."

Erwin hadn't been aware that there had been anyone at the stable that Levi cared for, but his concern for the two unknown humans had been obvious. Who had they been? He'd asked if Levi had any friends back at the stable, but he'd been talking about the dragons. It hadn't occurred to him to ask if any of the drake's _captors_ had earned his affection. Or whatever it was he'd shared with them that made his eyes darken with worry as he asked after them.

Levi had mentioned it in passing, but Erwin knew better than to take it that way. He pulled out his phone and addressed an email to Mike.

***********

THANK YOU [_CHERRY!!!!!_](http://cherrymoyaya.tumblr.com/post/137179482760/a-smol-thing-for-merkase-and-her-amazing) I will never stop screaming about this. Still screaming a week later.  <3  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll probably go back and also and put Cherry's art in the chapter where Erwin was trying to give him the shirt BUT I WANTED YOU GUYS TO SEE IT IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY LOOK AT HIS HANDS AND HIS SCARS AND HIS FACE AND HIS--


	17. The Turn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A morning visit from Hanji yields some progress for both man and dragon, but everything takes a turn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, beta [Mandwing](http://harmony283.tumblr.com/).
> 
> Additional thanks to ERRYBODY for reading and commenting and leaving all those sweet asks for me on Tumblr that I still need to reply to. I don't get much evening time during the week and my weekends are crammed with all the things I didn't have time to do during the week, but I do read them and they give me the warm fuzzies every damn time. I'm hoping to catch up on some of that today. <3

Hanji arrived at the house while Levi was still in the bathroom, flipping their loose shoes off at the door and looking around in amusement. "Your house hasn't been annihilated. In fact, I believe it looks tidier than it normally does."

Erwin wasn't sure how the doctor was able to tell. The townhouse in the city that they shared with Moblit had always the barest inch away from sliding into chaos. "Levi finds things to clean. If it's already clean, he cleans it again."

Hanji made a thoughtful sound. "Probably a holdover from the stable. He's using extreme sanitation to combat extreme filth. It sounds to me like a coping tactic, so I wouldn't try to confront it unless it starts looking compulsive. Where is he, by the way?"

"Bathroom. He had a run-in with my whole-grain."

"You gave him bread?" Hanji asked. "For humans?"

" _ Gave  _ is a very loose description of what actually happened." Erwin knocked on the bathroom door as they passed. "Do you plan on becoming one with the toilet seat?"

"Fuck you and your toxic human toast."

"If I remember correctly you were duly warned. Hanji is here, so please don't blow them through the wall when you walk into the kitchen and see them."

"I'm not promising anything. Do you intend to stand there and listen to me shit, because I've been clenching my asshole since you started harassing me and it's getting uncomfortable."

"No, I'm leaving," Erwin assured him. "Honestly, though, are you alright?"

"No," Levi grumped, "but I won't die."

"That's good to hear. Take your time, Sweet Pea."

Levi snorted at the momentarily unsuitable nickname and Erwin turned away as he promised he would, finding Hanji leaning in the kitchen doorway behind him. They wore a small grin on their face. "It looks like you two are making all sorts of progress."

"He's speaking to me now. I guess once the silence was broken he was able to keep going."

Hanji's grin widened. "Yeah, I heard that. He sounds like quite the character. Pity it had to be under those circumstances, though. Nanaba told me what happened at obedience."

Erwin glanced back at the bathroom door--still closed--and motioned for Hanji to follow him deeper into the kitchen. "He can't go back there. That can't be the only option. Isn't there a homeschool or something along those lines?"

"Unfortunately not. You'll have to take him someplace roughly similar to Head Start or risk the DCA _._ I've been trying for years to get distribution rights for legal certificates of completion, but I haven't had much luck with it. The schools are standardized by DCA regulations, so of course the DCA trusts them. They don't trust what they can't control and private-sector behaviorists like me can't be controlled, nor can a homeschool situation. But, as you've seen, the obedience setup doesn't work in all cases. It's too rigid to truly adapt to individual needs, despite what they claim about being able to _tailor._ The dragons that aren't able to pass muster for one reason or another are either sent to a preserve or seized and destroyed depending upon the situation. It's such a mess.”

"Then we need to work with him. He needs to be functional around other dragons or he won't be able to finish the training."

"My thoughts exactly," Hanji answered. "Mike and I are trying to talk Nanaba into introducing him to the younglings, but she's gotten attached. She can't help it. They're young and she's a dragon."

"So is Levi."

"That's part of the reason why I'm here," Hanji admitted. "Nanaba asked if I would assess Levi's mental condition and see if I think he's safe to be around the younglings. She knows it's a good idea, Erwin, but she's cautious."

"Of course. That's understandable." Erwin moved slowly to get another kettle going for Levi. “Do you think this will settle his stomach?”

“What is that? Pu erh?” They asked, bending to sniff experimentally at the leaves as Erwin scooped a few teaspoons into the strainer. “It could. A nausea medicine would be better. You’ll want one that also treats an upset stomach. Unless you have some ginger floating around here--” Erwin shook his head. “--That’s enough leaves to brew tea for the army. You know that a quality pu erh is good for multiple infusions?”

“Is that the same thing as steeping?”

Hanji sighed and waved him out of the way, reaching into the pot and salvaging some of the tea that hadn’t been dampened yet by the remnants of Levi’s first pot. “You’ll want to rinse the leaves before you use them, especially if this is an aged variety. Use a small amount of boiling water and give the leaves a good swish. That will prevent any unwanted astringency.”

“You’ll need to explain all this to Levi,” Erwin told the doctor. “He’s determined to do it right.”

“Well, he chose the right interest, then,” Hanji told him. “Tea can be as casual or as complex a hobby as you want it to be. There’s room to make it into an art, if that’s what he wants. Or he could simply learn to make the perfect cup of tea and leave it at that. This is a good pot.”

“How’s the strainer?” Erwin asked them dryly.

“Very roomy. Good work.”

When Erwin left the kitchen on a quest for nausea medication, Hanji followed without prompting, pushing their fingers down into their back pockets as they went. "He'll be fine," the doctor promised, catching the way that Erwin looked at the closed bathroom door as they passed. "One slice of bread won't kill him, but I'd be surprised if he tried it again anytime soon. He'll feel like death and he may need to stick close to the toilet for a little while, but he's right. He'll live to avoid bread another day." Hanji did a double-take as they passed Erwin's bed, though, which has been unmistakably converted into a dragon's nest. "You have him your room?"

“That is also a loose description of what actually happened.”

“Aw, Erwin,” the doctor moaned. “If you don’t want to court Levi, you’re sending him all the wrong signals.”

“It’s alright,” he interrupted quickly, trying to jump in before Hanji got too absorbed in what they were saying. They could speak very quickly when they got on a roll. “I talked to him this morning and I think we’ve both agreed to move forward with the courtship.”

Hanji’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Move forward? You don’t want to end it?”

“I did.” Erwin sank into a crouch in front of his bathroom drawers, certain he’d seen something for nausea in his home pharmacy. “I do. Intellectually, I do. It doesn’t seem okay to me the way our circumstances are set up. It isn’t …”

“Entirely proper?”

“Yes, exactly.”

Hanji hopped up onto his counter and sat there with their legs dangling, lightly tapping their sock-clad heel against his cabinet. "Where did you get that idea from?" They asked, leaning back onto their hands and looking at Erwin with their psychologist face in full effect. "Intellectually, you said. Is it not something that you're feeling?"

"No, but it isn't right just because I want it to be."

Hanji snorted. "Are you sure? Where do the concepts of right and wrong come from if not from the people who conceive them?"

"You'll have to talk to a philosopher about that."

"It isn't a philosopher who needs to hear it," Hanji said. "Look at it this way. If everyone on the planet believed that it was morally necessary to eat their first-born child and one person believed that it wasn’t, is that one person wrong because everyone else has agreed on something different? That’s the problem with custom and belief. People forget that believing something doesn't make it absolute, no matter how many people agree with them."

"What if I'm one of the people who believe that I'm wrong to court Levi?"

"Then you're wrong. But do you believe it or do you just worry about it? Do you think that, right now, Levi is being taken advantage of?"

"I don't know."

Hanji sighed. "So, you’re courting your witness. You’re courting a damaged creature, you’re courting a dragon, you’re courting someone that you signed some legal papers for, etcetera and etcetera. There are plenty of ways those circumstances could be questionable on their own, out of context, but you have to take Levi's wishes into account as well. He's an adult and he chose you. He has a rough history, but I've never thought he sounded impaired. All his faculties are sound. This isn't like taking advantage of someone who has the mind of a five year old. Levi has suffered for sure--probably more than either of us is capable of imagining--but that doesn't compromise his ability to consent."

Erwin let himself rock back onto his bathroom rug, his ankles getting tired from holding all his weight in a crouched position. He hadn’t thought of his reluctance that way--as making the decision for Levi. Hadn’t that been what he always aimed to avoid? It wasn’t up to him to decide which decisions Levi was and was not prepared to make. Not if he had full control of his own mind. “You said that you didn’t think that Levi was impaired in any way,” he said. “You don’t think the stable made him sensitive to kindness? If you didn’t have Moblit and it had been you and not me who had given him water that day on the preserve, do you think our situations would be reversed?”

“You mean, do I think he likes you because you were the first good person to walk into his life?” Hanji asked. “Honestly … if you want my opinion on that, I think it all started before you were kind to him. I think that was the point when he calmed down long enough to notice it, but to trigger an allure like that, you would have to be attractive to him anyway. You might have even done something back at the stable that got his attention. Pinning him down, maybe. He’s a fighting champion, so how many people have been able to subdue him barehanded like that? At the time, he wanted to take a chunk out of your jugular, I’m sure, but when he saw you again on the preserve I’ll bet it occurred to him that you looked nice, that you smelled nice, that you were strong on his level. He wouldn’t have approached you in the first place if he hadn’t already been interested. So no, I don’t think our positions would be reversed. I don’t think I’d have made it that far.”

The thought was … liberating. Erwin breathed out, leaning forward to search the open drawer for the nausea medicine as he gave himself a minute to think. If Levi was sound of mind and fairly influenced, then the rest he thought he could accept. It  _ was _ highly inappropriate to woo his witness, that was true, and he wasn’t sure he was buying into Hanji’s view of morality on the subject, but he did agree that at the end of the day, it was a private matter. Within the context of their courtship, they would have to work out their own version of proper. Erwin passed the pink bottle up to Hanji for inspection, watching while their eyes scanned the label.

“This should be fine,” they decided. “There’s nothing in here that will hurt a dragon. You’re not going to let this eat you up?”

For a moment, Erwin thought they were talking about the medicine. “I think I’m working through it.”

“Do you like him?” Hanji asked, sliding to the edge of the counter in preparation to dismount, but they did not slide all the way over the side. “I mean, I know you’re interested enough in where this will go to try courting him, but do you  _ like  _ him?”

“I’m not sure I understand the difference,” Erwin admitted.

“Do you like him romantically or are you still trying to determine that?” Hanji clarified. “Are you attracted to him currently or do you just think you could be? Do you want to touch him?”

“Yes,” Erwin answered vaguely. “I think so.” He gathered his feet beneath him and stood, taking the bottle that Hanji held out for him and ignoring their dissatisfied huff.

“I hope Levi is more forthcoming than you are, Erwin. You make for a very dull subject of speculation.”

“Or am I interesting for providing you with more to speculate on?”

"I'm not telling you anything he tells me," Hanji told him as they followed him back down the stairs. "... You can just  _ speculate." _

Erwin was laughing softly when he knocked on the bathroom door. "We found something for you. Are your intestines still on the inside?"

"I don't know," came the grumbling reply. Erwin thought he heard the tell-tale sound of a toilet brush, the quiet slosh of water. "I couldn't tell through all the mess."

"Levi, are you cleaning?"

"Yes, of course I’m cleaning. I just took a shit  _ inside the house _ like a savage are you telling me you don’t even clean up after yourself?”

Erwin sighed. "You don't need to clean a toilet after every use. That's what the--" The toilet flushed, and Erwin thought the timing was probably deliberate. "We'll be in the kitchen," he conceded.

"He's cute," Hanji remarked, already working on the kettle. "Will he want tea?"

"If he doesn't, we'll need to call Grisha. Do you want any breakfast?"

The doctor shook their head. "Thanks, but I ate with Moblit early this morning."

When Levi had finished in the bathroom, it was his dragon form that stepped into the kitchen, his head low and his eyes suspicious as he caught the doctor’s scent and breathed it in.

“Good morning,” Hanji said pleasantly. “I’m not sure if you would remember me from the stable with the busy night you had, but my name is Hanji. I’m a behaviorist, technically, but I prefer dragon psychology. It’s a field that doesn’t officially exist under that name, but I’m campaigning for it. Erwin and I met in college.”

Levi looked over at Erwin in disbelief.

“College is a type of school. You go there to learn different professions and it prepares you for your adult job.”

“So they say,” Hanji laughed. “It’s probably Moblit you’re smelling on me. He is my mate. I didn’t remove his scent because we’ll be working on desensitizing you to the effects that other dragons have on you.”

Levi huffed an unhappy breath, swelling moodily in the kitchen doorway like an aggressive garden lizard.

“Do you want this?” Erwin asked him, holding the pink bottle aloft for him to see. “I braved an overly involved philosophical conversation to get this for you.”

“You will need to take it in your human form for it to have any effect,” Hanji added without pause. “And you will need to remain in your human form long enough for it to absorb into your system. I can leave the room if it makes you more comfortable.”

Levi just looked at them both.

“Go ahead and step out,” Erwin guessed. “If he doesn’t change forms I’ll assume that’s a ‘no’ and I’ll call you back in.”

“Sure thing,” Hanji said easily, ducking around the tense dragon and taking it in stride when he shrank away from them. Erwin, though, settled him with a significant look.

“A nod would have been simpler.”

_ I know,  _ that look said. But ultimately, his need for gastrointestinal relief won out and with only the briefest of mistrustful looks shot over his shoulder, Levi stepped farther into the kitchen and his dragon form rippled around him, paling and softening as he shrank. “Your friend smells like shit,” he groused, stepping quickly behind the counter and pulling himself up into one of the stools.

“That’s my other friend you’re talking about,” Erwin retorted, but there was no heat there. He twisted the cap off the medication and measured out a dose for the shivering dragon, holding it out without walking around the counter where Levi would be fully in view. He already looked uncomfortable, hunched over with his arms close to his body.

“No, it’s both of them.” Levi paused as Erwin offered the dosing cap, but he hesitated to reach out for it. Some other time, Erwin might have tested him, might have pushed him, but he was feeling bad and Hanji was there smelling like another dragon and looking like a stranger, so he just left it on the counter between them and turned.

“I’m going to get you a blanket.”

He almost didn’t hear the quiet, “Thank you,” that followed him out of the kitchen.

“What’s happening?” Hanji asked him. They’d busied themselves with his mantle, studying items that they’d seen a hundred times over almost as many years, but they turned to face Erwin fully as he emerged from the kitchen.

“Stay out here just another minute,” the detective answered, pulling a different blanket from the back of the sofa where Levi must have left it the last time he’d tidied up. “He’s cold.”  _ Carryovers,  _ he mouthed for Hanji alone, and the doctor frowned.

_ Still?  _ They mouthed back.

Erwin shrugged. He had to return quickly to the kitchen, though, lest Levi grow suspicious of a long absence. He wasn’t clear on what the rules had been regarding touch and he had even less idea now that they had agreed to try courting, but as he hesitated there behind Levi, unfolding the blanket in his hands and letting it fall open to its full size, he thought it couldn’t hurt to step closer and drape the fabric across his bare shoulders. Levi did tense as the fabric settled around him, but he drew his knees up quickly and tucked himself in without complaint.

“Is it okay for Hanji to come back in?” he asked, eyeing the empty medicine cup he’d left on the counter in front of him. He’d allowed his hands to linger around the drake’s shoulders as they paused to marvel at the tension leaving them, but when Levi nodded, he squeezed lightly. “Do you need to go lie down?”

“I’m queasy, not dying,” the drake snapped, remaining very still under Erwin’s hands like he wasn’t sure they would leave him if he moved.

“When I’m queasy I might as well be dying,” the detective admitted. He did not withstand nausea very well. He’d borne a gunshot with perfect stoicism, but there was something about nausea that put him down hard. “Hanji,” he called a little louder. “I’ve known Hanji a long time, he said quietly before the doctor returned. “You can trust them. I do.”

Levi shook his head, but Erwin wasn’t able to ask what it meant before the brunette was back, breezing in like nothing at all in the world was amiss. “Are you okay like this?” they asked. “You’re not uncomfortable in your human form with me here?”

Erwin let his hands fall to his sides, figuring that Levi would be ignoring Hanji for the time being. If it bothered the doctor, they didn’t let on, whipping the boiling water from the stove and flipping the eye off with practiced ease. “Anyway, do you know how funny it is to see this happening again in our friend group?” they went on conversationally. “Mike was first, with Nanaba, then it was me. We all swore up and down we would never have anything to do with courting dragons. It’s nothing personal, of course. It’s about the legalities. In my case, I believed I was making a solid stand against a corrupt system. I was so convinced I would never fall prey to it. Then I met Moblit. I was there for another dragon--a feisty little girl who wouldn’t sit still long enough to learn from her tutors. They called me in to consult. Moblit was there too, of course, though he was an adult. The breeder had him helping with the younglings, though he wasn’t for sale. They didn’t have any special love for him--he just wasn’t breeder quality. He wasn’t a good representation of the breeder, I guess. He was frail and quiet, easy to intimidate, though his comportment was excellent.”

Levi was actually listening at that point, interested despite himself.

“I’m not going to use your special tea,” Hanji promised, waving one of Erwin’s sub-par tea bags at Levi and dropping it into their cup of hot water. The pot was for Levi. “Anyway, the breeder was embarrassed when he started experiencing the allure. She apologized profusely and asked me to ignore it.” Hanji snorted. “At first I did. I tried. It went against my principles at the time--see, I believed, and I still do, that it is fucked up on a fundamental level to try and claim any ownership of a sentient being. I didn’t want to open that can of worms. But, Jesus, that boy was cute. It was a long assignment. I’d meet with the girl for an hour every day and work with her. Moblit was teaching them how to read at the time, so we worked together often.” Hanji shrugged. “I expressed enough interest in Moblit that the breeder finally relented. For a long time, I felt a little twisted up over it. Doing something like that--laying money down for someone’s life like it belongs to you--it isn’t easy to accept. Or it shouldn’t be. It wasn’t for me. I would wonder if I had done the right thing by violating my own principles that way. But then I would look at Moblit and for a while I would stop worrying because he just seemed so much happier. In time, I think I came to accept that signing ownership papers for someone and actually  _ owning _ them is not the same thing. Not in any way that matters.”

Levi slid an inscrutable look towards Erwin--one that Hanji intercepted and interpreted on a hunch. “He’s struggling in the same way I was, but I’m not telling you this because you should worry. In fact, there isn’t any reaction you should want more to see. He balks because he’s a good person, not because he doubts his interest in you. If it were me, I wouldn’t want anyone else holding my registration papers, honestly.”

“Are you going to continue down this line of thought?” Erwin asked dryly, reaching around Hanji to pour the tea they’d forgotten about. “If so, I’m leaving the room.”

“No, I can move on," they snorted, reaching for their own cup and lifting it without adding the sugar that Erwin was putting into Levi's. "We need to, anyway. I'm sorry to push you into being social before you're ready, Levi, but thirty days isn't long when you need them so desperately."

“Twenty-eight now,” Erwin reminded them. Levi reached for the tea as soon as he placed it in front of him, his hands wrapped up in the blanket draped around him. Hanji's eyes followed the movement with interest, but their expression gave nothing away.

"The good news is that you two seem to be doing alright for a pair that bombed out of their first obedience orientation. Worse cases have walked into my office.  _ Really,”  _ they replied to Erwin’s raised eyebrow. “That familiarity and interest between you will make a world of difference. In fact, I think it’s the reason why success is even possible at this stage. It sounds to me your biggest problem with obedience isn’t personal. It’s Levi’s response to other dragons. That can be addressed by exposing him as gradually as we can to positive, genuine experiences with others of his kind. We desensitize him, essentially. Tell me, Levi, have you ever been close to a youngling?”

The drake frowned, glancing at Erwin over his tea.

“It’s important,” the detective assured him, and Levi shrugged. When he opened his mouth it was Erwin he seemed to be answering.

“I’ve never seen a youngling,” he said simply. “I could smell them on the humans, though. I know they kept them in the small building.”

“And you knew what they were without ever seeing one before?” Hanji asked, briefly sidetracked by the fact.  _ “Fascinating.”  _ Erwin could already see the doctor making a mental note of that tidbit. It wouldn’t be forgotten in a hurry, that was for sure. “So you were never trained to kill younglings.”

The look Levi shot them was enough to convince anyone that the idea repulsed him. There was no mistaking the disgust in his face. All the same, they had to be absolutely sure.

“How different from other dragons did they smell to you?” Erwin asked, figuring Levi would answer him more readily than he would respond to Hanji. “Do you think it would bother you to be around them? Would it be difficult to keep from hurting them?”

“I don’t know. They don’t smell like adults. They’re different, but I’ve never been close to them.”

Hanji nodded slowly. “I think this would be a good first step. It’s logical to assume that you wouldn’t see a youngling as any sort of threat even if we did set aside centuries of protective instinct and say you were likely to attack them simply for being dragons. I would be surprised if you didn’t react the same way any adult dragon would react to a parentless youngling. I’ll let Nanaba know and we can begin making preparations as soon as possible.”

“They aren’t likely to come home with us, are they?” Erwin asked, doubtful now for a different reason.

“Levi is about as likely to adopt them as he is to try killing them, so yeah, I wouldn’t get too attached to your remaining guest bedroom.” Hanji was entirely serious. “It’s probably fifty-fifty unless they’ve already gotten attached to Nanaba.”

“In that case, we will only be meeting the younglings that are  _ firmly _ attached to Nanaba,” Erwin stated. “Or anyone else, as long as it isn’t Levi.”

Levi sniffed at all of this, but did not reply. He ignored them both in favor of sipping once more from his mug, his expression showing little interest in any of it, much less adopting younglings.

“There is one other thing that concerns me,” Hanji spoke up again with the air of a subject change. “I’ve noticed, Levi, that you’ve been covering your carryover traits the whole time I’ve been here. Are you ashamed of them?”

Levi froze.

Honestly, Erwin froze as well--not quite as overtly, but he’d been blindsided by the question right alongside Levi. There hadn’t been any discussion of opening that can of worms on Levi’s first real introduction to Hanji. The detective shot a look their way, but their attention was elsewhere.

“This is one matter that should be settled between you before we begin working with other dragons. It’s a source of insecurity in your courtship and that could manifest unpredictably later on--possibly as overcompensation in other areas, like defending your claim on Erwin, for example. If you are not secure in the knowledge that he will not abandon your suit for another, you may lash out aggressively against other unmated dragons.”

Hanji set their teacup aside and lifted themselves onto the counter by the stove where they’d been lingering since the conversation began. “Erwin has heard a version of this, but I’ll repeat it for both of you. There is no substantiated scientific evidence that can support the claim that human-form phenotypes are any indicator of overall health. It simply hasn’t been proven. I doubt it  _ can _ be proven, because it looks to me like the reverse is true. Several studies, including one of my own, have demonstrated an overall decline in health and longevity in both adult and juvenile dragon populations over the last handful of decades. I’ve been able to tentatively connect this trend to the genetic mutations and inbreeding associated with today’s government-sanctioned breeding programs, but I don’t have enough data yet to publish. It isn’t natural for dragons to look as human as they do. Their carryover traits have been carefully bred out of them over many generations to produce that show-quality look that everyone admires so much. But genetically, they’re a mess. They’re a weakened, watered down shadow of what a dragon should be, so what do you think that means for you?”

Levi didn’t bother feigning disinterest, but he didn’t answer Hanji, either. The doctor could go on for quite some time without encouragement, which was a lucky thing because they weren’t getting any from Levi. They barely noted it, breezing on past the question without giving him much time to answer it anyway.

“How many generations removed are you from breeding stock?” Hanji asked. “It’s more than one. I can see it around your eyes. It’s rare to show much pigmentation there, even for dragons with noticeable carryovers, but yours are quite shadowed. Your genetic heritage is clearly reasserting itself over decades and decades of suppression. The traits that people have been calling “instability” are likely a product of a more saturated bloodline. Essentially, you’re more dragon than most dragons. You’re more aggressive, you’re more intense, you’re hardier, you’re stronger. I can see how that would look like instability to some. Would you show me your hands? I remember them being dark at the stable, but the lighting in there was awful.”

Levi did not move. Had Hanji been stupid enough to approach him, Erwin had little doubt that his reaction would have been defensive. But the doctor saw that, too, and they did not attempt it. “Hmm,” they mused. “I recall Moblit being this way as well. I couldn’t get it through to him that it didn’t matter to me how frail he was--that he was attractive enough to me, but it was his mind I cherished. It persisted almost all the way up to the point we first mated. The courtship has a way of doing that to a dragon. Once it’s gotten into your head that you could be insufficient, it sticks. Unfortunately, Levi, with you we don’t have the luxury of weathering that out. You’ll have to work at believing that it doesn’t matter to Erwin. Luckily for all of us, that’s the truth.”

“It is,” the detective agreed.

“Show Erwin, then,” Hanji suggested. “After I leave, quit sulking like a youngling and pull your hands out of there. Or are you that mistrustful of him?” Two challenging eyebrows arched high over the top rims of their glasses. “He knows what you look like and he chose to court you anyway. Doesn’t it seem silly to keep on hiding yourself from him?” The doctor slid to the floor, leaving their mug by the stove rather than approach Levi to carry it to the sink. Or they just forgot about it. “I’ll call Nanaba on the drive home and let her know that it should be safe to introduce Levi to the younglings.”

Erwin walked Hanji out to the front porch without prompting, though they reached past him to close the front door behind him so they could look at him seriously. “It’s important that you get him past that insecurity with his carryovers before he encounters another adult dragon. I don’t trust the strength of the hold it has on him. Also … has he started touching you, yet?”

“He has. He doesn’t seem entirely comfortable, though.”

Hanji nodded. “He wouldn’t be. Honestly, it’s a good sign that he’s initiating touch at all. In a lot of cases, dragons coming from places of serious neglect or isolation will experience the need to start touching the person they’re interested in, but they won’t always be able to recognize that it’s touch they’re wanting, so they get increasingly agitated. It’s important at this stage that you both start experimenting with physical contact. It’s more than just a rapport thing. Dragons communicate many things chemically through the use of pheromones. When Levi touches you, he will leave traces of his scent on you. This will signal to other dragons that you are courting and they will be less likely to express interest in you themselves. Do you see how it could be a problem for you if this message is not being delivered?”

Erwin had not forgotten the photographs he’d seen of Dorian’s body. “He’s initiated touch a couple of times. Is that enough?”

“Pheromones wash off,” Hanji told him. “They wear off over time, especially if he leaves them on bare skin where your own sweat and oils can overpower them. If you watch a courting dragon couple, they’re touching all the time. It’s often so casual you’d miss it if you weren’t paying attention, but it’s more than a couple times. Try touching him more, yourself. Show him it’s okay and keep it casual. He’ll get more comfortable with you, it just comes back down to the time factor.”

“I have a feeling that we’ll always have problems with time,” Erwin sighed. He noticed that Hanji did not hug him on their way out. They didn’t touch him at all as they backed away a couple of steps and waved--something that struck him as being out of character enough that he wondered how much of Moblit’s scent might have worn off onto him if the doctor hadn’t been so careful. And did human scents bother dragons? If he came in smelling like Hanji, would that have been an issue?

It was probably best not to risk it until things settled down some. He waited just long enough to make sure the doctor’s car started before he waved back to them and slipped into the house. He thought he had a pretty good idea of how he wanted to proceed--an initial solution for two problems at once. Levi was still seated at the counter, sipping quietly from his teacup like Hanji had never been there, though the cup they’d used was turned upside-down in the drying rack, already washed.

“Your friend talks a lot,” he said after a moment.

“They do,” Erwin agreed. “But they say a lot of things that need to be heard.”

Levi paused, raising his eyes to the man’s face. “I didn’t need to hear any of that.”

“Then what do you need to hear?” Erwin asked him seriously.

“Nothing. You don’t need to say anything.”

Erwin leaned into the counter, extending his hands, palm-up, towards Levi. “Prove it.”

At first, the drake didn’t move. Erwin wondered if he would get the same silent refusal as Hanji, if Levi would get up and leave without anything changing, but his expression was thoughtful, his brow tense with the effort he was putting into the decision. Slowly, he shifted inside of the blanket and his hands emerged like cautious snails, coming to rest so lightly on top of Erwin’s that they might have been playing the hand-slapping game. His hands were cooler than Erwin would have thought they’d be.

“I’m interested in you,” the detective told him, his fingers closing around the drake’s hands and pressing them more fully into his palms. “It seems I do need to say that again. I’ll continue until you hear it.”

“I do hear it.”

“But you don’t believe it,” Erwin guessed. “What else do you think I could want from you? I know you would give me your testimony if I asked for it. There’s nothing else I need. This is genuine.”

“Why.” It wasn’t exactly a question, but only because it lacked inflection, Levi’s voice coming out harsh and clipped like the last thing he wanted to do was ask about that.

“I’m attracted to you.” Erwin was surprised to find that he was able to admit to it without shame. Hanji’s visit was doing both of them good. His thumb had found one of the spaces between Levi’s knuckles and caught there, drawn up and down the natural track it made. “You’ve impressed me, sure, and I keep finding new things to like about your personality, but I would be lying if I said that was everything. Personally, I like the way you look. I like your carryovers. I would be proud to be seen with you and proud to wear your scent on me--”

Abruptly, Erwin was reminded of something he’d seen in one of Hanji’s diagrams. In  _ Encyclopedia Draconia  _ there had been a short row of tiny scent glands along a human-form dragon’s wrists. At the time, he’d seen them labeled but he hadn’t really understood what they were for. Struck by inspiration, the detective extended his index finger along the inside of Levi’s wrists and pressed in.

Levi’s reaction was immediate. He jumped in his chair as though he’d been electrocuted, sucking in a sharp breath through his nose and clenching his fingers around Erwin’s hands.  _ “Joseph’s tits--” _

The doorbell rang.

It took both of them a moment to react to it. Erwin had paused, unsure of how to ask Levi what he’d just done. It looked like he’d unintentionally hit an erogenous zone, which he would not have done on purpose if he had known. “Are you alright?” the detective asked, ignoring the door for the moment. Considering the timing, it was probably Hanji, who must have made it all the way to the street before realizing that they’d left something in the house.

“Yeah, it just surprised me. I didn’t know you knew that was there.”

Erwin felt his shoulders relax minutely. “So it didn’t ah … hurt?”

The doorbell sounded a second time, but Levi was giving him an odd look. “No, why? Did you expect it to?” He pushed his chair back and wiggled to the floor, releasing Erwin’s hands as he went.

“No, it was just your reaction.” Erwin raised his fingers to his nose, curious to see if there would be a smell--something like musk, maybe? He couldn’t really detect anything, though. Just the hand soap he’d used earlier that morning.

“What are you doing?” Levi demanded, his cheeks actually brightening just a little as he watched Erwin take a deep breath in. “Can you actually smell that?”

“No, I can’t. Can you?”

“Of course I can. You expressed the whole damn row of glands, I’m all over you.” Was it Erwin’s imagination, though, or did Levi look a little disappointed that the man couldn’t smell him on his hands?

“Should I apologize?” Erwin asked sincerely. “Is your wrist going to be okay?”

“Just go and get the door before Four-Eyes breaks it down,” the drake grumped, though he followed after Erwin when he went to open it.

“It isn’t locked,” Erwin called down the hall. “You could have just--”  _ tried the knob.  _ It wasn’t Hanji on his front porch, though. There were two of them--a man and a woman both in slick dark suits, looking immaculate and professional and completely out of place on Erwin’s farmhouse stoop. He looked into their rigid faces and he knew before the badge case came out where they had come from.

“My name is Agent Tildwall and this is my partner, Agent Savoii.” Two glossy leather wallets fell open for Erwin to see. “We’re from the DCA.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I looked back over my timeline last night and I realized that things start picking up a lot from here. This story almost has two distinct arcs, though I won't be splitting WT into separate stories to reflect that. The first arc is slow and domestic and the one we're phasing into will be significantly more action-based. =D


	18. Hopeless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erwin does a stupid thing because it's the only available option. Somebody is going to need to come up with another stupid thing, and fast.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> APOLOGIES for the weak-ass title and summary. I just went out on an ill-advised fish supply run because I make bad decisions where aquariums are concerned so now it is 7:30 and I'm starving and I need to shove about half a pound of leftover pad Thai into my face before I go and wash all the mud out of my plant clay substrate stuff. But I was determined to have this up by Friday. 
> 
> Mandy did not beta this chapter through no fault of her own. It was ready to edit on Monday, but my cat had bone cancer and all of her organs kind of suddenly shut down and she needed to be unexpectedly euthanized for her own comfort and my dad was on a business trip so he never got to see her and the people calling into work were unusually insane this week so I actually completely forgot that I had a completed chapter at all. I don't know why this week was such garbage but it is weekend now and here is the chapter and I can now write another chapter in the soft glow of my bad-decision fish tank with its bad-decision stocking situation so all is well goodbye my stomach is eating itself.

Erwin certainly appreciated Grisha right then. They may not have seen eye to eye on a lot of issues, but he appreciated the warning he’d been given about the DCA and their likelihood of dropping in for an inspection. The vet had been right, too, correctly suggestion that they would not take their time. The two on the porch had surprised him, but they hadn’t blindsided him. Erwin was able to look them each in the face and say, “My name is Erwin Smith and this is Levi.” Otherwise, he left it to them to state their business. They looked at the dragon like they had an awful lot of it, so they'd undoubtedly be getting to it soon. 

“Levi is the name you listed on your claim papers,” Savoii confirmed, watching the drake stare back at her defiantly like she was making a mental note of it. “And our records show that you have never owned a dragon before?”

“That’s correct.”

“Why this dragon? Why now?” Savoii had a shrewd face. She’d seen a lot of people lie to her and she was confident that she could detect their mistruth. She also seemed to think that there was something suspicious about a man Erwin’s age suddenly showing interest in dragons. She watched Erwin closely when he spoke, as though she expected to find something illicit in his motives. She wouldn’t get anything. 

“The timing was right,” Erwin answered vaguely, uncertain as to what the DCA knew about Levi’s origins and unwilling to give them any more ammunition than he had to. Apparently, though, they were closer to the situation than Erwin could have ever anticipated.

“Yes,” the other stated. Tildwall? “We appear to be working different ends of the same case.”

Erwin raised an eyebrow. That was news to him. “I hadn’t been aware that the DCA was involved.”

“We’re working out the jurisdiction as we speak,” Tildwall spoke again. He had a dull, official sort of voice that didn’t lend itself well to immediate likability. “Likely, we’ll be taking it off your hands."

"On what grounds?" Erwin asked. 

"I understand that you're the lead on this case," Savoii said, "But we're not here today to determine how we will coordinate. Please describe your relationship to Levi. He is your witness in an investigation and yet you are filing claim papers. I'm sure you are aware that it isn't necessary for situations of temporary custody. There is another way we file that documentation."

"He is my witness," Erwin agreed. "But that describes the way we met, not our current circumstances."

"What circumstances are those?"

"I've realized that I want him more permanently than I originally intended." 

"You've gotten attached," Savoii replied reasonably. "That's understandable. It does sound like his story could evoke a good deal of empathy. In addition, he's been living closely with you for several weeks. Few could manage to avoid developing a soft spot. But do you realize what you're getting involved in?"

"Involved in, how?"

"I want to know if you understand what these papers commit you to. It's easy to get attached, but it isn't so easy when the realities of dragon ownership begin to surface."

"Ma'am, with respect, I've encountered little  _ but  _ the realities of dragon 'ownership' so far. I understand perfectly what I'm agreeing to and it's worth it to me." 

Savoii shook her head like she thought that Erwin couldn't possibly have the perspective to truly understand his situation. "We have reviewed Levi's case and we've found more than one factor that should alarm you--more than one factor that Doctor Jaeger assures us he has gone over with you in detail. Honestly, the issues surrounding Levi are more numerous than I've ever seen in one case file--"

"Is there a  _ legal _ problem with me claiming him?"

Savoii hesitated. Tildwall did not. 

"Actually, there is," he said. "We’ve been investigating a cluster of MARV-d outbreaks associated with illegally bred dragons in this area. We isolated a genetic component, but until we received Levi’s blood, we could not tie the outbreaks to any location or breeder.” His eyes slid sideways to Levi, the interest there unmistakable.

“What does Levi have to do with a MARV-d investigation?” Erwin asked quickly. He’d been ready for a lot, but that wasn’t anything he’d been expecting. A simple home inspection was starting to look pretty good to him, but it didn’t look like this was the standard sort of DCA housecall.

“Everything,” Savoii answered. “He belongs to the same genetic line as the carriers we’ve identified, but none of them survived long enough to give us anything in regards to their origins and they were younglings, besides. The families that purchased them are also dead.”

There wasn't anything like fear, the sudden jolting sensation of an unforeseen threat when it hit the blood and spread. Adrenaline punched through him as surely as the blade of a knife, opening him up. "Is Levi--"

“No,” Savoii assured him. “We triple-checked. His blood work is clean." 

Erwin's next breath shook with relief.

"However ... he is related to most of the carriers, meaning that he came from the same breeder and our cases have intersected. As a matter of public health, ours will take priority.”

“What about the fighting ring?” Erwin asked them. “What happens if you find the breeder you’re looking for and they are a separate entity from the person at the center of my own case?”

“That situation will remain a police issue. If we do not uncover the ring along with the breeder we will hand the case back to your department along with all of your case files.”

If they intended to take his case files, then they intended to take everything--everything pertaining to the case, including--

“And my witness?” Erwin asked, his chest clenching in expectation of what was coming.

“We will need to take him into custody,” they confirmed. “It’s why we’ve come today."

They'd been trying to talk Erwin out of keeping Levi so he'd hand the drake over to them without raising any fuss over it. They'd hoped to scare him into giving him up. 

"You can question him here, if you need to, but he doesn't go with you."

The agents exchanged a brief glance. They seemed to decide that it would be Savoii who delivered the news. 

"Unfortunately, we will need to hand him over to our central laboratory for additional testing once we have finished questioning him. He would need to remain there.”

Erwin frowned. “Why is that?” He did not like the way they spun that verbiage.  _ Remain there  _ sounded like a euphemism for dissect. “If he isn’t carrying MARV-d, then what use is he to your lab?”

“Our scientists are studying how the virus works. It manages to lay dormant in Levi’s bloodline and remain both infectious  _ and  _ asymptomatic for years without ravaging the host, which was totally unheard of before now. Only once it became active did the infected younglings show any symptoms. No one was aware that they ever had it. This could be a medical breakthrough.”

“And you plan to study it by deliberately infecting Levi with it, I assume?” After that, they were right. Levi would have to  _ remain  _ in the lab. They couldn’t allow an infected carrier to come into contact with anyone ever again.

“Unfortunately,” Savoii answered quickly, “we are not at liberty to discuss the details of our investigation.” Her eyes jumped anxiously to Levi--the first sign of discomfort she’d shown since she arrived. They’d heard about him, then, from Grisha. They were trying to keep this exchange of custody as lighthearted and optimistic as possible, knowing what Levi was capable of if he thought his life was in danger. The drake was as taut as a bowstring in the doorway beside Erwin. He’d come up just behind the detective’s left arm as they were all speaking and stopped just shy of real physical contact, but he was near enough that he brushed against Erwin occasionally when he breathed in. It was a comfort to feel him there. 

“In that case,” Erwin pronounced slowly, “I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to release Levi into your custody.”

“You don’t have any choice--”

“Unless we’re mated.” He felt Levi’s breath catch in surprise and he hoped the drake hadn’t given anything away. “We just completed our courtship two nights ago. Our claim papers are on file with you. Legally, that gives me rights. You cannot seize Levi unless he or I have committed a crime or pose a real, identifiable risk to public health and safety. A real risk does not include taking him to a government facility for inhumane experimentation.”

“I assure you that there is nothing inhumane about the experiments we will be conducting,” Savoii asserted diplomatically. “The virus itself does not harm hosts from Levi’s genetic line until they become active and when that time comes, he will be dealt with humanely.”

“You can’t really expect us to believe that you completed an entire courtship in less than two weeks,” Tildwall interjected. “We weren’t born yesterday.”

“It doesn't matter when you were born," Erwin answered. "Your birthday doesn't change the facts."

“This is a very dangerous game you’re playing, Mr. Smith,” Savoii warned him. “When we come back with a warrant and a dragon consultant, we will be able to determine if you are truly mated. Unlike people, pheromones don’t lie.”

“Bring your warrant, then,” Erwin told them coldly. “You can  _ try _ taking him with that, if you like. Until then, we’ll be in here watching the Hallmark Channel.”

“Enjoy it,” Tildwall told him. There was a strain in his voice that made Erwin want to push him farther, to make him work for Levi if he wanted him so badly. But that wouldn’t do anything for them. If they did take Levi, they could make it a lot more miserable for him if they were riled up. So Erwin tried to refrain. He managed to keep his contempt to a minimum until the agent added, “I don’t guess you’ll demand to see a warrant if we asked to take a look at your barn?”

“No,” Erwin answered immediately. “Look to your heart’s content as long as you don’t try to humanely destroy my riding lawn mower.”

Savoii had to take Tildwall’s elbow at that point. He and Levi may come to regret that later, but Erwin was grimly satisfied to see the agent struggling with his temper. “Have a good day,” Savoii told him, her tone heavy with disappointment.

That time, when Erwin closed the door, he locked it behind them. 

Levi did not move from where he stood. “I wonder if I’ll wake up one day without having to try and remember who still wants to euthanize me,” he sighed. He sounded tired, uncharacteristically worn. Erwin leaned back against the door like he could keep the DCA out that way and reached into the blanket for the dragon’s hand, gratified when Levi did not pull away.

“Yes,” Erwin insisted, smoothing a thumb over the top of Levi's small knuckles where the gradient from dark to light began. “You will.”

“How long do we have until they come back?” The drake asked, watching Erwin’s thumb move.

“It depends on how long it takes them to get their documentation together. I don’t know how their internal process works, but maybe a week? Two if we’re lucky. It won’t be much longer than that.”

“We won’t be mated in a week,” Levi said sharply. “I don’t even know if I want--”

“I know that,” Erwin assured him, squeezing his hand gently to quiet him. “But I don’t know of anything else that would have prevented them from taking you today.”

“What happens when they find out that you were lying?” Levi squeezed Erwin right back, only he wasn’t gentle. The sharp tips of his nails pricked harshly at at Erwin’s skin. “You’ve gotten yourself into trouble just to buy me a week.”

“We’ll have figured something out by then,” Erwin told him, tugging him down the hall to the living room and attempting to deposit him onto the sofa. “I’m going to call Hanji and we’ll talk it over. Did you have any tea left? Stay put and I’ll go and get it.” But Levi was too agitated to sit still, getting up and immediately following Erwin into the kitchen.

“Use a clean cup,” he mumbled automatically, taking the old one and moving over to the sink to wash it out while Erwin poured him fresh tea from the pot, dialing Hanji's number even as he worked. 

“Tell me you haven’t gotten into trouble already,” the doctor laughed at him, their voice crackling over their car’s Bluetooth connection. Christ, they weren’t even home yet.

“We have,” Erwin replied quickly. “The DCA showed up just after you left.”

Hanji cursed as foully and unrelentingly as a sailor. “Were they in a black SUV? I think I passed them on the street in front of your house, but I didn’t see them pull into your driveway. Goddamn, if I’d known it was them I’d have thrown my ginger ale from last week onto their--”

“Hanji.”

“Sorry. What happened? Are they not still there? Usually those things take a while to wrap up.”

“I think they’re still looking at my barn, but they didn’t come for the home inspection. They’ve linked Levi to a bloodline that’s been carrying MARV-d and they think my fighting ring breeder is at the center of their investigation. They’re taking over and they’re trying to take Levi.”

“Does Levi  _ have _ it?” They asked sharply. “Erwin, if he’s infected--”

“They said he wasn’t. He’s just related to some of the younglings that were. Once they finish questioning him, they want to take him to a laboratory.”

_ “Do not let them,”  _ Hanji told him urgently. “If you let them take him, you will never see Levi again. If he’s going to a lab, they want to study his reaction to the virus. They’re going to infect him with it and watch its progression, then once they have all they can take from him they’ll kill him and incinerate the remains.”

Erwin was glad that he’d decided against putting Hanji on speaker phone. “I know. They told me something along those lines. But how did you guess?”

“Because that’s what I would do if I was one of their researchers and I had no moral compass. Is Levi still with you?”

“He is …”

“But?”

“I had to tell them that we were mated.”

The silence on the other end of the line was so abrupt that it rang in Erwin’s ears. 

“That was probably the only way they were leaving without Levi,” Hanji finally breathed. “But God, Erwin, that was stupid. That was so fucking stupid. They’ll arrest you for obstruction, lying to a federal officer … They’ll get you for something, possibly several something's. You'll go to federal prison."

“That’s why I called.”

“What are they doing, coming back with a warrant?” Hanji asked. “Hold on, I need to pull over.”

Erwin could hear the doctor’s turn signal clicking faintly in the background. They actually remembered to use it. He gave them a moment to get themselves settled before he continued. “They’re getting a warrant and another dragon. To detect the pheromones, I guess.”

“I bet it’ll be a hell of a show when they turn up,” Hanji muttered. They paused--presumably bringing their car to a stop--and Erwin could hear them change gears when they pulled it into park. “How long does that normally take? A couple days?”

“A week to two. With their urgency, though, I’d bank on the lower end.”

“Shit. Shit, shit. If they come back with a warrant, it’s legal, they can have him. Until you have a finalized, legal claim on Levi such as a completed courtship tested by pheromones or a signed breeder contract or obedience papers from a recognized institution, Levi is considered a stray. That status makes it possible for the DCA to seize him from you if that’s what they want to do.”

“So, what are our options?”

“I don’t know,” Hanji gritted out. “You can’t rush a courtship. You can’t manufacture feelings that are not there, because your standing with Levi will reflect in the pheromones he leaves on you. That dragon they’re bringing will barely have to get close to you to determine that you and Levi are not a mated pair. There’s no way to fake that.”

“The DCA agents said something similar.”

“Breeders are out,” Hanji continued. “No one would claim to have bred a dragon whose breeder is wanted by the DCA. That would be stupid and they wouldn't go to prison for you. Obedience isn’t an option. Those programs last six months to a couple years once you’ve chosen a school and enrolled. Simply enrolling isn’t enough. You need to have completed the program. What you need is  _ time.” _

“And that’s the one factor in all this that is least likely to come with a loophole,” Erwin said grimly. He’d forgotten to give Levi his tea, but the dragon hadn’t bothered him about it. He was sitting at the counter watching him, listening in, but he seemed surprised, too, when Erwin turned and brought the fresh cup to him. Even Levi had forgotten about it.

“What are your circumstances?” Hanji asked. “Have they told you to stay where you are?”

“They can’t. Neither of us is suspected of a crime, so they can’t tell us not to go anywhere. We could leave the country if we wanted.”

“You could,” Hanji sighed. “But Levi will need documentation that he doesn’t have.”

“So we can’t drive over the border and attend an obedience school there?” Erwin asked.

“I’m afraid not. Canada’s residency laws require any dragon entering the country to already have that documentation. He wouldn’t make it through the border.”

“So there’s no way into Canada at all for Levi," Erwin repeated thoughtfully, vocalizing it as he processed the information. 

“Not legally.”

Now there was an idea. “How easy is it to forge what we need?”

Hanji did not bat an eye at his seriousness. In fact, they matched him tone for tone. Erwin would have marveled at the kind of friendship they shared if he hadn't been preoccupied with the problem at hand. “Impossible. The documents themselves would be a breeze. I could probably print them out on my home printer. But you would also need someone who is capable of hacking a government agency because they verify everything digitally against DCA records.”

“What about the preserve?”

“You could hide him there temporarily,” Hanji said. “If he moved around, passed through many different territories, he could probably evade detection for a while so long as the DCA doesn't have a drone with a sophisticated thermal rig. But as a long-term solution, hiding out on the preserve would really only make your problems worse. Even if you managed to go with him and complete the courtship while you were on the run, well … it would look too much like being on the run.”

“They would probably just arrest us both when we resurfaced and take Levi anyway, mated or not.”

“Exactly.”

“So, apart from sneaking across the Canadian border and living the rest of our lives as illegal immigrants and international fugitives, we don’t have any way to prevent the DCA from experimenting on Levi.”

“And arresting you,” Hanji reminded him unhelpfully. “Essentially. That’s all we have so far.”

“It isn’t much to work with.”

“No, it isn’t, but I believe we’ll find something that we haven’t seen yet. There are too many factors and life is too complex for anyone to be truly trapped. We just have to think. I’ll pull Moblit into it tonight. We’ll fix this.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Erwin told them. But he did. His doubts stirred uncomfortably in him like a nest full of worms. “We’ll put our heads together over here as well.”

“What did you decide?” Levi asked him as soon as he got off the phone. He was getting too good at reading Erwin's nonverbal cues. The detective would have to watch that.

“Not much for certain,” he answered. “Hanji is working on it and so will the rest of us.”

“But it isn’t good?”

Erwin looked into his troubled face and he hated more than anything to tell him the truth. “No, it isn’t the best.”

Levi’s eyes fell, his chin dropping towards his chest. “I should run. I can fly north and lose myself in the wilderness up there. You would be able to go on with your life without any more trouble and I would still survive. They can’t blame you if I run, and they can’t prove we were never mated. You wouldn’t smell like me anymore by the time they brought their dragon.”

“Don’t do that, yet,” Erwin told him. “It’s an option if it has to be, but as a last resort only.”

“It seems that’s all we’ve been left with,” Levi answered dully. “All we have are last resorts.”

“Then we’ll choose the best of them when we’ve gathered them all,” Erwin assured him. “Levi,” he said, waiting until the drake looked at him. “There may be an option we haven’t thought of yet.”

But the drake looked as disbelieving as Erwin felt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Erwin at the end there be all like ‘but bb i dont wunna not smul like u tho.’


	19. The Idrarod

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hanji calls in the wee hours of the morning with a possible solution. Unfortunately, the cost of failure is steep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is fairly short, so I'm sorry in advance, but I think the next one will be a little longer than normal unless I can find a natural place to cut it, so it should all balance out. I've also got to post and run again. I've been working on a baby quilt for my cousin's baby shower that is NEXT WEEKEND and I only just got the thing basted together so I still have the whole thing to quilt. I'm calling it Leviathan because it has whales on it and it's been a monster. 
> 
> On a similar note, there MAY not be an update next weekend because I'm going up to South Carolina for the shower and my aunt and uncle have a spotty internet connection so I may not even take my computer. I hope to have chapter 20 up Sunday night, but I don't know how much time I'll have to write. I have no idea what a baby weekend entails and I'm going to be quilting all this week. If I can't get it up, SORRY IN ADVANCE! And for those of you I've sort of disappeared on I'M SORRY RIGHT NOW AND ALSO IN ADVANCE IT'S JUST THAT B A B I E S.
> 
> Holy shits this is the first draft and everything I'm so sorry.

Hanji called around three in the morning, when it was still early enough that the sound of their ringtone was earth rending. It was only happenstance that Erwin still had the ringer set at all. He'd forgotten to silence it the night before, having expected little in the way of urgent, work-related emergencies now that the DCA was taking his case. They could take his emergencies as well, he thought. He had enough of his own there at home to deal with, no thanks to them. The detective rolled over blindly in the dark, still half asleep and seeking the alarm clock on his bedside table before he woke up enough to notice the difference in sound. Before he could end the call, however, he noticed the name that appeared on his blinding screen. 

"Hanji?" Erwin rasped into the phone. "Do you realize what time it is? Are you in trouble?" 

"No, I'm not in trouble. Just the opposite, now. I've been up all night," the doctor confirmed. Erwin could hear the caffeinated jitter in their voice and he wondered where Moblit was--probably asleep if he hadn't cut the doctor off yet. 

"How much coffee have you had?"

"Enough to kill a lesser person," Hanji replied readily. "But that's beside the point--the point  _ being _ that I've come up with something you'll want to hear." 

Erwin sat up slowly. "Something to get rid of the DCA?" 

"No, I've discovered a cure-all vaccination for toenail fungus. Of course it's for the DCA. Go and get Levi, already, I want you both on speaker."

Sleep deprivation certainly brought some of Hanji's sharper personality traits to the forefront. What little bit of social filter they possessed went into a sort of sleep cycle, leaving Hanji to fend for themselves. “Just a second,” Erwin told them, eager to hear their potential solution but knowing full well he wouldn't get a thing from them until Levi was listening, too. 

Erwin tossed the covers back and reached for the sweats he kept at the foot of his bed for those mornings he woke to find that the house was still chilly. There was no sign of his last remaining bath robe. Probably, it had already found its way into Levi’s nest, leaving Erwin to cross the hall bare chested. He tucked Hanji under his arm and pulled the pants on as he walked. 

“Is this safe, you think?” Erwin asked the doctor, referring to the act of deliberately digging Levi from his nest in the middle of the night and waking him up. 

“I guess,” they answered noncommittally. “Dragons aren’t nocturnal, so just let him know it’s definitely you and you should be fine.” 

Erwin sighed, but he told Hanji again to hold on and reached over to put the phone on his bedside table so he could sit down without any distraction. The drake was so small in his human form that Erwin wasn’t sure exactly where he was. He lifted the edge of one blanket, then another, then another, then another, only to find after his slow exploration of his stolen bed that Levi was actually curled up in the exact middle, burrowed so deeply into the covers that he’d ended up creeping several feet down the mattress. No wonder it had taken so long to locate him. 

“Levi,” he said softly. The drake shivered in his sleep, wiggling farther down as he instinctively sought the warmth from his disassembled nest. Erwin had to stop him before he could disappear again or back himself right off the far edge of the mattress, catching him beneath the armpits and pulling him gently back up. Levi squirmed himself into semi-wakefulness, letting out a small, unhappy growl and rolling into Erwin, instead. The man had just become the warmest thing in his immediate vicinity. Erwin guessed he realized it was him, then. The detective doubted very seriously that Levi would curl so resolutely around some other human’s ass. “Hanji is on the phone,” he said instead, holding still as the tops of the drake’s thighs came up to to wedge themselves against his own. That put his head somewhere around Erwin’s opposite hip, so the detective turned and lifted his arm to try and find him. “Are you awake?”

“What did you do to my nest?” Levi rasped, still half-asleep. “Where is it?”

“Hanji is on the phone,” Erwin repeated. “They have an idea they want to share with us.”

“Cover me back up,” the drake demanded. “It’s colder than the devil’s refrigerator in here.” 

Erwin leaned down the bed to pull some of the blankets back up to Levi, who dragged them around himself but did not roll away from Erwin. He was actively shivering by that point, nestling into Erwin’s back like he was hoping to fuse to the man. “Holy shit, how do you live this way?" the drake grumbled. "What time is it?”

“You don’t want to know,” Erwin answered honestly. “Hanji  has been up all night looking into our DCA problem and they say they’ve come up with something.”

“What kind of something?” Levi wanted to know. “A good something?” 

“I don’t know yet. They wanted us both on the phone.” 

Levi shifted unhappily when Erwin leaned forward to retrieve the device, tucking his chilly arms between his chest and Erwin’s back as soon as the detective was upright again. It wasn't the most comfortable position Erwin had ever been in, but he supposed he  _ had  _ been the one to drag Levi into the cold, so he could endure a little discomfort. 

“I’ve changed us over to speaker,” the detective told them both. “Can you hear me okay, Hanji?”

“Just fine. Is Levi there?”

Erwin waited just a moment to be sure that Levi wasn’t going to reply to them on his own before he spoke up. “He’s here.”

“Great. What do you know about the Idrarod?” They asked, straight to the point. 

“It’s a long dragon race,” Erwin answered. “That’s about it.”

Hanji made a soft sound into the phone. “It’s the winter run of the National Obedience Association’s Endurance Flight, called the Idrarod because it’s official name never took. I don’t blame anyone. Idrarod is funnier. Because Iditarod, get it?” 

“I know of it in passing, but I’ve never followed it. I know it’s supposed to be a big deal.” 

“It is. I don’t follow it either, which is why I didn’t immediately think of it,” Hanji admitted. “It’s kinda fucked up if you ask me. Riding a dragon as their partner is one thing, but riding them like you might ride a horse …” They trailed off, and Erwin wasn’t entirely sure what definition of riding Hanji was referring to when they mentioned riding Moblit as a partner, so he simply kept his mouth shut until the doctor continued. “The race is designed to test the bond between human and dragon. That’s what they say, anyway. Really, it’s designed to test a dragon’s willingness to obey. They call it the 'ultimate mastery test' in their press releases. It  _ is  _ supposed to be brutal, so I imagine that's an apt description, but there’s also one key factor that may be of interest to you.”

Erwin was starting to feel like they would be entering an endurance race, though he wasn't sure yet how that was supposed to solve their problems. “What factor is that?”

“It’s meant to be run  _ before  _ a human-dragon pair goes through obedience. That’s part of what makes it so challenging. Pairs are usually mated, but they do not have obedience papers on file. You aren’t allowed to take part if you’ve been enrolled in a school for longer than three months, so you two are definitely eligible. And one of the things that they reward you with at the end is a certificate. That goes to everyone who crosses the finish line, not only to the first place or second place winner. If you can cross the finish line at all, the certificate is yours.”

“A certificate exempting us from obedience training?” Erwin confirmed. 

“Finishing the race is proof that you don’t  _ need _ obedience training. The certificate only serves as official documentation of that. What’s more, the route takes you directly north into Canada. Entering the country within the bounds of the race is considered legal, and the DCA does not have jurisdiction there. Once you cross the border, they cannot detain you with or without a warrant even if they could catch up to you. Then, the end of the race is very public. There’s a closing ceremony and everything. If the DCA takes Levi from you with a NOA certificate in his hands, there’s no way for them to avoid a huge negative backlash. Technically, the certificate is one of the documents that they cannot violate unless a crime has been committed or Levi is infected with MARV-d. It’s the same as completing obedience training. If their warrant is dated before the certificate is received, they could get away with taking him, legally, but it would get all sorts of ugly attention when the media found out. They wouldn’t want to risk that. Their reputation is already pretty shaky where public opinion is concerned and they won't want to make that worse.”

“That same logic would hold true for a judge,” Erwin realized. “Euthanizing Levi with the other dragons from the investigation would earn them too much bad press if I make a fuss about it."

"Which you would."

"Naturally. And it would be of little interest to them, anyway, if NOA has already vetted Levi as being safe. They wouldn’t do it. It wouldn't be worth it to them.”

“I don’t think so, either,” Hanji agreed. “The only thing is, the rewards are so great for a reason. This race really will be a test rather than a miracle solution. I think it can work, but we also shouldn’t underestimate how difficult it will be. The Idrarod relies on a synergistic relationship between human and dragon and when that relationship is not strong, people don’t finish.  _ Usually, _ they don’t finish because they die. And your opponents are couples that are freshly mated … or in their case, platonically bonded, I guess, since their relationships are unnatural--I mean not sexual. Still, they’re starting out with an advantage that you two do not have and you need to consider that.”

“We’re infinitely more stubborn,” Erwin replied. “And we have infinitely more to lose if we fail.”

“No, you don’t. No more than anyone else does,” Hanji corrected. “It’s true that Levi’s life is on the line, but once you enter the race that won’t be a novelty anymore. Everyone who enters it has their lives to lose and they do lose them.”

Levi was so silent on the bed behind him that after a moment Erwin leaned back a little to get his attention and he asked, “Are you awake?”

“Yeah,” the drake answered quietly, nudging him back.  

“There’s … one other thing I thought of,” Hanji spoke up again. “If it doesn’t look like you will finish and it isn’t a life-threatening situation, Levi could abandon the race. You’ll be in Canada for most of the course. Levi could leave you and you could activate your emergency beacon and allow them to find you wandering in the snow, mourning your ‘dead’ dragon. If you claim that Levi is dead, then they wouldn't know to look for him even if it mattered to them that he was out there somewhere.”

Erwin breathed out slowly. “The DCA has no authority in Canada. They can’t search for him.”

“And Canadian officials are unlikely to.”

“My god,” Erwin murmured. “Either way, Levi lives.” 

“Unless he dies,” Hanji reminded him. “Unless you both die. This race is not kind, so you need to give that some thought.”

“Whatever we decide, this was a brilliant idea, Hanji.” 

“I know. I have a client who was talking about entering. You have to reserve your spot months in advance, so I’ll have to ask them if they would be willing to offer you theirs. I think they would be open to the idea once I explain your situation. They were waffling on it anyway. The dragon involved has some severe phobias that they were seeing me for.”

Erwin did not reply immediately. He was already trying to get started on the long thought process that would keep him up for the rest of the night. “When does the race begin?”

“Sunday.”

They would be cutting it close. The DCA could already be looking for them by then and Erwin had no idea if these agents worked weekends. “We may have to go and stay on the preserve for a few nights,” Erwin mused. “ That will throw them off long enough to buy us a few days. If they question it after the fact, we can say that we were making preparations there or throwing a farewell party. It’s feasible.”

Levi prodded him sharply in the back. “Don’t talk like you already made the decision.” 

“I don’t see how there’s any other decision to make,” Erwin answered, genuinely surprised by Levi’s response. “What else is there to consider?”

“I’ll let you two discuss it,” Hanji said quickly. “And I’ll start getting some things together for tomorrow just in case. We can’t afford any lost time, so I’m going ahead as though you’ve said yes, but I will accept it, obviously, if this isn’t what you want.”

“Thank you, Hanji,” Erwin told them sincerely. “Please sleep for a few hours, first.”

“Sure thing!” But Erwin knew that tone. The doctor would not be sleeping until Moblit woke up and found them and forced them irritably to bed. 

Levi was speaking before Erwin’s finger even made it to the call end button. “It would be safer if I ran. I can cross the border on my own and nobody has to risk anything.”

The detective paused, wondering not for the first time if a day would ever come when Levi stopped surprising him. Where had that selfless streak come from? Who had ever shown him that? “Would you rather go alone?” 

“I can’t ask you to risk your life for me, especially when it isn’t necessary.”

Erwin shook his head. “It’s a long way to Canada from here. There’s wilderness, but there are also a lot of occupied areas. People will see you and think you’re a rogue. You would be risking your life that way, too.”

“But you wouldn’t.” Levi moved, trying to sit up with the blanket still wrapped around him. He'd done a very good job with it, though, and it took him a moment to work his way into a seated position. Erwin's eyes had grown accustomed to the dark and he could make the dragon out where he sat just over his right shoulder. “Aren’t you supposed to be practical?" Levi asked, pausing only briefly enough to lean down the bed and drag more blankets around him. "Where’s the sense in risking two when all you need to risk is one?” 

"Here's how I'm looking at it," Erwin explained. "Method one, we both risk our lives in the race and live peacefully if we make it. We could come back here and plant an herb garden and argue over which brand of canned tomatoes to get at the supermarket like everyone else does. Whether we complete the courtship or not, you're welcome to stay here. We are guaranteed safety and some form of companionship. Method two, you risk your life alone to fly north. If you survive, you continue alone. You scrape by in hiding because you have no registration papers, eating what you can find on the fringes of society and avoiding everyone because you don’t know who may turn you in. That's the rest of your life. That doesn't look like much to me."

"It beats being deliberately infected with that virus."

"By how wide a margin?"

Levi breathed a frustrated sigh. "Being alone is something I know how to survive. It isn't the worst thing there is."

"You heard Hanji. This race is a test and tests can be cheated. We don't have to be deeply bonded mates for life to work together when the stakes are that high. I believe we have a good chance of faking our way through."

"Faking obedience didn't go so well."

"I disagree. I had your attention and you were able to turn away from those other dragons with no previous exposure or desensitization. If Corine had not stepped in you'd have walked out of there with me."

"You don't know that."

"I do," Erwin insisted. "I saw you make the decision. Just … do me a favor and don't leave while I'm not looking." Behind him, Levi shifted guiltily like he'd been planning exactly that. "Start preparations with me instead. We'll expose you to other dragons and to public places. We'll do as Hanji said and move forward like we're planning to race. If things don't go well, you can decide from there how to proceed. But give it a little time. This is too dangerous to rush into blindly and I say that for both options. We do need to put some thought into it."

Levi leaned forward to rest his head along the back of Erwin's bare shoulder. His cheek was cool against the man’s chilly skin, but his breath, when he released it in a long sigh, was hotter than any human's. The contrast sent goosebumps tickling over the backs of Erwin’s arms and the neck, but he ignored the shiver trying to ripple through him in case it spooked Levi. 

"A week isn't long enough," the drake decided finally. 

"No," Erwin agreed, afraid to turn and look at Levi lest the dragon take it as a protest of the contact they shared. He was warm against Erwin’s back and there would be a chill there when they parted. “But I think we can force it to be what it needs to be, at least where those other dragons are concerned. We have all we need between us.”

“You heard what Hanji said,” Levi answered softly. “The other pairs will be mated. We don’t even have that.”

“Do you trust me?”

“Yeah.”

“Then we have all we need.”


	20. AU Pair

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mike and Nanaba's younglings think they are in a pirate AU. Levi starts to wonder if he is in a nanny AU, and Erwin is still roughly where he should be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gotta post and run. Picking up my dad from the airport. HI GUYS THANKS MANDY ETC ETC BYE.

Levi and Nanaba spoke that next morning at sunrise while Erwin made eggs and heated chicken viscera and listened to the dead silence on Levi’s end of the line. A couple of times, the detective had to look over his shoulder to see if the drake had hung up yet because there was no other way of knowing without seeing the phone still pressed to Levi’s ear. Erwin hadn’t the faintest idea what subject Nanaba found that much material for, but hoped she was making herself appropriately personable. 

Presumably, Levi was listening over his first cup of tea, the phone pinned between  his shoulder and his cheek the way he’d seen Erwin do. They were supposed to be introducing Nanaba as a person before the two of them met face to face later that day, but the way Levi’s eyes followed Erwin around the kitchen suggested that his mind was elsewhere.  

"You're looking at me like you expect me to go somewhere," Erwin told him as soon as he hung up the phone and moved it carefully aside. "Did you even hear Nanaba?"

Levi looked down at his tea, disinterested. "I don't have the social experience to know if your friends are as strange as they seem. In comparison to everybody else."

"They're strange." Erwin could confirm that without hesitation. "What did Nanaba tell you?"

"She said that she was available if I ever needed advice on how to pleasure a man's asshole," Levi answered slowly, his expression bemused. "What does she mean, 'pleasure?' Is she referring to the satisfaction you get from shitting, because I don't think I want to help you with that."

If Levi didn't kill Nanaba, Erwin was tempted to do so himself. "It doesn't have anything to do with using the toilet. Nanaba was referring to sex. Mating."

Levi couldn't have looked more confused. "They did that with a plastic bag at the stable," he said slowly, like he was trying to imagine some other way that sex worked. "They slid our dicks into a tube and we thrust into it. The bag was at the end."

"Ah. I imagine they did it that way because you couldn't have regular sex," Erwin answered. "You'd have killed your partner." He eyed Levi in his periphery, trying to figure out if it bothered him being bred that way, like a horse or a cow. He gave no sign of caring, like it had just been a part of his life at the stable, and Erwin had a hard time deciding what to make of that, if his nonchalance was better or worse. "The bag method isn't typically how it goes."

"How does it go, then?"

Erwin mulled that one over as he dished up their breakfasts. He'd allowed his bacon to get a little overdone, but it hadn't burned. "It's more direct," he ultimately answered. "There is no bag and no tube. Everything goes directly into your partner." Erwin felt it best not to over complicate the issue with the matter of condoms, which were essentially tiny bags if one were being technical about it. Levi wrinkled his nose. 

"And this is supposed to be pleasurable?"

"Very." Erwin slid Levi's plate of organs over to him, along with the fork and knife he was now able to use like a natural. The drake didn't immediately move to eat, though, his expression thoughtful. 

"I've heard others talk about it like it is. The stable hands seemed obsessed. It felt alright when they came around with the collection equipment, but I've never had anyone mount me. It's enjoyable that way, too?"

"It is," Erwin told him simply. 

"I don't understand how that would go," the drake answered without embarrassment. "I would like to see photographs."

"Then I guess I need to show you how the Internet works. Urgently."

Levi sipped from his teacup, unperturbed. 

They left as soon as they finished breakfast. Erwin coaxed Levi into a pair of pants and then into the passenger seat of his SUV and then into a seat belt, though the drake refused to wear a shirt. Once he discovered that Erwin's scent was all over his bathrobes he had no further use for shirts. He looked like someone that Erwin had just broken out of a mental hospital, dressed in a pair of too-large sweats and a robe and a pair of socks that Erwin didn't mind sacrificing to the outdoor terrain at the preserve. 

"We'll stop by the store on our way back," Erwin told him. He had the back open, loading the boxes of case files into his trunk. There were two, but neither had been stuffed full. "I can run in and get you something that fits."

Levi was turned around in the front, his chin resting on the shoulder of his seat. "You don't need to do that."

"I do. You can walk around the house naked if you prefer, but taking your clothes off in public will get you into trouble."

"You can get into trouble for that?" Levi asked. "That's stupid."

"Nevertheless. You need a pair of pants that fit. And shoes. Most places won't let you in without shoes and a shirt."

"I won't go into any of those places, then," Levi said haughtily. "I'll stay at home."

_ At home  _ was a thought that made Erwin's stomach clench. For the moment, Levi's home was not guaranteed, and he hasn't ever explicitly stated that he saw it that way. 

"We'll have to go where the dragons are," Erwin told him, reaching up to close the liftgate. "Home isn't safe until we can get everyone to leave us alone."

Levi sat back in his seat with a frustrated huff, pulling a couple of blankets from the floorboard under him and spreading them across his lap. "Were those your files from the fighting ring?" he wanted to know. 

"They haven't asked for them back, but they will," Erwin answered as he stepped up into the driver's seat. "Once they've finalized the jurisdiction issue, I won't be allowed to keep documentation for a case I'm not working on. While we're out today, I was also hoping to swing by the precinct and drop them off."

"Oh.” Levi went silent for a good handful of seconds, but he wasn't finished speaking. "If you hadn't signed those claim papers for me, they wouldn't have known."

"No, but you still wouldn't have been safe."

Levi turned his head to look over at Erwin. "I was talking about your case."

"I was talking about you." Erwin reached to turn the car on, but he didn't make any move to go. "The case is important," he said finally. "All of those lives matter. The DCA isn't after the fighting ring, but they are after their breeding program. If they find them, the rest will unravel. And you have the names I need. I may not be able to investigate, but once you give me those names I can make arrests. One way or another, that ring goes down. It doesn't matter who has the box of folders. What does matter is who has you."

"That's sweet," Levi drawled. 

"It's true. I can return to the case. I can mop up whatever the DCA leaves behind. When they bust up the ring I'll be right behind them. If they take you, though, there's no getting you back. You're gone."

Levi sighed, looked down at the blanket he'd bundled around himself. "They won't take me," he promised. He didn’t have to say the rest--that he would struggle all the way to the lab. He would kill as many of them as he could and if he could not escape, he would force them to kill him. He didn’t have to say any of that for Erwin to understand that it was his intention, but the weapons the DCA carried were not all the lethal kind. One did not struggle for very long against a sedative. 

"I would like to avoid that encounter if at all possible," Erwin told him. "Our aim is to avoid them until we complete the race.”

“If we race.”

Erwin glanced over at the drake, but Levi’s head was turned away. Maybe he really was that fascinated by the blurry wall of trees passing just outside the window. Maybe he was looking out for the first gas station or roadside market. He was in a good position to get a real eyeful of the feed and grain store up the road. 

“Nanaba won’t be there when we arrive,” Erwin said instead, choosing for the moment not to address the issue of whether or not they would be racing. “We’ll see how you do with the younglings and give you a little time to acclimate if necessary, then if all goes well, Nanaba will join us for lunch. She will remain in her human form today, so she will be little threat to you.” He looked over at Levi again to see if anything had changed, but he was still turned away, his shoulders tense. “Please remember that she cannot hurt you in her human form, nor can she defend herself if you try to hurt her.”

“I can’t promise you anything.”

“She means the world to me.” That did draw Levi’s attention. Erwin saw the drake’s head turn in his periphery, his eyes boring into Erwin’s profile. “She isn’t nameless or faceless. You spoke to her yourself this morning. For my sake, if not for her's, please let me know if you feel your resolve slipping."

Levi breathed out shakily. "When I'm far away like this, I feel like it could be possible for me to be alright, but it's different when they're  _ right there. _ If it's anything like obedience then it may hit me before I can warn you."

"I know you have a lot of conditioning to overcome," Erwin told him, reaching over to flip the switch on Levi's heated seat. The drake's eyes followed him, but he didn't ask about it. "It has to be a lot to think about, so perhaps you could simplify it. Just focus on keeping your human shape. I can contend with you in this form, so don't focus on not attacking Nanaba. Focus on not attacking her as a dragon."

"I could kill her in my human form, too."

"I don't doubt it," Erwin agreed. "But I'll be sticking close. If you make a move to do that I can pull you back before any real damage is done."

Levi didn't reply for a long while. He seemed to be thinking about it, though when he spoke he was reluctant. The detective could hear it in the uncertain way that Levi said his name--like he wasn't sure he wanted that, "Erwin ..." to be heard. It was a few moments more before he decided to continue. "What if you ..."

Erwin glanced over at him. He had to return his eyes to the road fairly quickly, but he caught the tension in Levi's face. 

"If it looks like I might shift, you'll need to stop me. There's only going to be one way to do that quickly enough."

First, Erwin's thoughts went to the holster that he didn't have on him, but Levi wasn't talking about guns or bullets. Erwin realized it a moment later when the expression registered--that faintly nauseated dread. "You're consenting to that?"

"Nanaba is important to you. If it keeps me from killing her, I can be okay with it. Just do what you have to do."

"You would be completely vulnerable with everyone there, including an adult dragon. Would you be able to forgive me for that?"

"I'm the one telling you to do it," Levi huffed irritably. "If I thought you would let them hurt me, I wouldn't have said anything." 

"They wouldn't hurt you anyway," Erwin replied distractedly. "But you're right, I wouldn't let them if they wanted to."

"Do it then."

Levi was tense all the way to the preserve. It wasn't the car, which Erwin would have expected to see more anxiety over. Levi was fine with riding--expressed interest in it even. When he discovered there were buttons to press he pressed them systematically, eliciting either an obvious response from the SUV or an explanation from Erwin. When he found the radio that stopped him for a full fifteen minutes while he sat there in fascinated silence and listened to the Golden Oldies station it had been set to when he found it. But as civilization became sparse and the trees grew thicker, Levi sat back and completely clammed up. They entered a long stretch of untouched national forest--the last few miles of unoccupied space before they hit the perimeter of the preserve. None of the territories butted right up against the road. Just out of sight behind the treeline, much of this side was protected by a deep, natural gorge that had been artificially extended with the help of a demolition crew and a great deal of explosives. There was some fencing along the edges touching the gorge, but the most vulnerable side had been carved out along the highway. It was sufficient to keep the casual tourists at bay. For everyone else, there were posted warnings and infrared sensors. 

By the time they reached the security gate, Levi was so tense he quivered with it. The guard's eyes slid over to him nervously as he radioed to let someone--probably Mike--know that they had arrived, and Erwin was relieved to see that his friends had posted one of their rare human staff members today. Levi's glower wasn't particularly pleasant, but he wasn't lunging across Erwin to take the man out, either. 

"Mr. Zacharius is waiting for you in the main building," the man reported as the gate rolled open. "He says the courtyard is ready."

"Thank you."

So far, so good. 

As promised, there were no dragons between Erwin's SUV and the main building, staff members or otherwise. He was able to ease up to the front and park them right outside the main doors without a single unintentional encounter. "You'll smell other dragons," Erwin warned Levi as he cut the engine. He didn't immediately get out. "We shouldn't run into any adults, but they didn't bleach the hallways or anything."

“I can already smell them," the drake replied tersely, though it didn't stop him from getting out of the car. He slid to the ground slowly, dragging. "I'm okay. Let's go."

He didn't look okay. He was reluctant to close the passenger door like he would rather get back in first, his expression pinched and determined like he was getting ready to free dive beneath Arctic ice. Erwin reached out and took him by the hand, but the drake twisted free of him immediately, his small arm darting around the detective's waist instead and catching a generous fistful of his shirt in a death grip. There was nowhere for Erwin's own arm to go except for around Levi's shoulders. Still, he laid it there carefully, trying to keep the weight off of Levi lest he feel restrained and panic. Apparently he needed more of Erwin than his hand. 

"We look dashing," Erwin commented, drawing a pair of anxious eyes to his own face. Erwin turned so Levi could see them reflected in the passenger side window. "Nothing at all like half of our shared wardrobe caught fire and we have a government agency knocking on our door a week before the race that we're barely prepared to enter."

Levi breathed a short laugh through his nose, a little of the tension clearing from his face. "We look exactly like that. Keep your hand close to my neck."

So that was the reason for his sudden need for closeness. He was trying to put himself in the best possible position for Erwin to hold him back. 

“You're not going to need it,” Erwin assured him, but Levi seemed to be focusing on maintaining his control and he didn't answer. 

No one met them in the hall. Mike was letting them come to him, then, giving Levi whatever time he needed to gather himself before walking in. The big glass windows allowed them a view of the inside as they approached, so Levi was able to pause there and look at the scene he was preparing to step into. The space was used mostly as a safe, enclosed area for younglings to go outside without any risk of getting lost or running off. It was something like a cross between a playground and a conservatory, packed full of lush foliage and sturdy, metal-framed playground equipment. Erwin and Levi were able to see the younglings from the relative safety of the hallway--something they'd set up intentionally. 

There were two dragons that Erwin could see. Both were a little older than many they'd rescued from the stable, but Erwin understood Nanaba's choice, for it had undoubtedly been her's. They were young enough to pass beneath Levi's radar, but just old enough to communicate. If Levi lost control, they could take instructions from the adults. They could run. 

Well, Erwin observed, they could do more than that. One of them--a little blonde in her human form--darted nimbly along the top of the jungle gym and onto the roof of the adjoining structure. Without showing any sign of anxiety or effort, she slid down the roof like a sailor down the sail of a ship and dropped onto the waiting back of another youngling, who jumped under her weight like it startled him. They could hear her victorious shout from outside as she thrust her plastic sword into the air. Only then did Erwin notice that she wore an eyepatch. 

"Who is supposed to be watching them?" Levi asked sharply, drawing Erwin's curious attention. But they both clearly heard Mike’s deeper register call out sternly for her to come to him. 

“Mike is watching. I think she's about to be scolded,” Erwin noted. He could see it in Mike’s body language even if he hadn't heard it in his tone. 

“Mike hurts them when they misbehave?”

It took Erwin a minute to realize why Levi was asking. He'd drawn that conclusion from his own experience. “He punishes them, but he doesn't hurt them. He’ll probably tell her to sit down for a few minutes for a time-out. What about you? Do you feel any need to hurt them?”

"It looks like they're going to accomplish that on their own just fine. No," he added when Erwin kept looking at him. His eyes were on Mike, though, narrowed in suspicion like he was getting ready to pop the man’s head off if he raised his hand to strike Petra. Mike didn't, though. He was speaking, frowning a great deal, gesturing to the playground equipment and back to the younglings, but he never touched the little dragon. "I don't feel anything from here," Levi murmured.

“I'm not so sure about that. It looks to me like you're feeling protective.”

Levi tensed. Only then did Erwin realize that he'd been relaxing slowly into his side where they stood there watching. He looked up at Erwin in horror. “I'm not really going to try to take them home, am I?”

“I have no idea,” the detective admitted. “But it would be a good problem to have. It's a good starting point if you can tolerate  _ some _ dragons.”

When he reached for the door there was less hesitation. Levi actually led Erwin into the courtyard, where Mike was striding over to meet them. The younglings behind him exchanged a glance like they'd been pardoned, scuttling after Mike to greet the newcomers. 

"They were watching Peter Pan," Mike explained, raising an eyepatch of his own so he could look properly at the new arrivals. "Only the pirates stuck, as you can see." There was some wariness in the look he was giving Levi, like he was watching him subtly for signs of homicidal intent, but the drake couldn't care less about Mike or his concerns. He was staring in fascination at the youngling pair, watching them stare back at him with equal interest. The male's nostrils flared, his chin tipping up as he caught Levi on the air and breathed in deeply. Erwin was so caught up that he didn't answer Mike, either, his fingers tensing minutely around Levi's shoulder as they all waited to see how this introduction would unfold. 

The male slid out of his dragon form without prompting, his eyes shifting sideways to Mike. He didn't seem to know what to make of all the staring, but the girl did not pick up on the same tension. 

"Are you our foster parents?" She wanted to know. 

Erwin felt the tiny jolt of surprise that passed through the body leaning into his, but it was Mike who spoke. "This is my best friend, Erwin, and Levi came from the same stable where we found you."

Two sets of enraptured eyeballs swiveled back around to Levi. 

"From the big stable?" The girl asked. 

"You're a fighter?" The boy added. 

"I was."

"Were you good?" The boy asked immediately. "Did you kill lots of dragons? Ow--" he shot an accusing look at the girl, who had just elbowed him sharply in the ribs. 

"He was their champion," Erwin told them. 

_ “Woah.” _

“Why don't you introduce yourselves?” Mike suggested. “You haven't told Levi your names.”

The younglings looked at each other, deciding between themselves which of them would go first. There was no telling what silent conversation was passing between them, only that somehow it was decided that the girl would introduce them. She turned to Levi and boldly announced, “My name is Petra. This is Auruo.”

“What happened to your eye?” Levi asked immediately. “Is that an injury?”

“I lost it in a sword fight,” she said proudly, raising her plastic sword and pointing it directly at Levi, who raised a doubtful brow. 

“Of course you lost, fighting with that.” He reached out and took the sword from her, blade first, giving it an experimental squeeze and frowning as it gave way in his hands. “Is this a training weapon? Are they teaching you to fight here?” But he looked up at Erwin before the children could answer him, his frown deepening. “Why is your friend training younglings to fight?”

“I don't believe Petra is referring to an actual fight,” Erwin told him. “Children play. The eyepatch is pretend, because pirates wear them. The sword isn't for training. It's just so they can be pirates.”

“That's right,” Auruo spoke up authoritatively, latching onto a subject that he felt confident about. “Pirates wear eye patches because it helps their eyes adjust when they go below deck if one eye is already used to the dark.”

Erwin looked up in surprise at Mike. He hadn't known that. Evidently, Mike hadn't either because he shrugged and mouthed the word,  _ Hanji.  _ Of course, Hanji. 

“I  _ lost _ mine, though,” Petra insisted with a mighty scowl. “Against my arch enemy, Peter Pan.”

Evidently, the younglings had seen a very different version of Peter Pan than Erwin was familiar with. Levi looked to Erwin for answers, but the detective had none. He could only offer Levi’s shoulder a squeeze as he kneeled before the younglings. “If it isn't too presumptuous of me, my lady pirate, do you mind showing Levi your eye? He's never lost an eye before and he’s very curious about it.”

Petra regarded the detective thoughtfully. “It's gross,” she challenged. 

“I promise I won't be sick.”

Petra transferred her challenging look to Levi, who stood there uncomprehendingly for a handful of seconds before he realized what she was waiting for. “I … won't be sick, either.”

Petra nodded her acceptance and reached up, lifting the patch to reveal her whole, unblemished eye, squinted shut but obviously present. Beside him, Erwin felt Levi relax. 

“I see,” Erwin said. “You're lucky to have walked away from that fight.”

“Not all of her did,” Mike noted solemnly. “An eye is never lost lightly.” He pulled off his own eyepatch and offered it to Levi. “I need a break. Want to take over? I'm Petra's first mate, but I'm plotting a mutiny with Peter Pan, who can turn invisible.” He lowered his voice just a little, leaning forward and ignoring it without taking offense when Levi shifted away from him. “Petra's weight won't hurt Auruo, but don't try climbing onto him yourself. You could hurt his back.”

Levi did not acknowledge the warning, but he reached cautiously for the eyepatch that Mike held out to him, allowing the man to drop it into his waiting palm. 

“What do I have to do to be a pirate?” Levi asked Erwin. 

“I'm not sure, but it sounds like you have a knowledgeable captain who can tell you all about it. Are you alright?” That last he added quietly, seriously. 

“I am,” the drake replied, clearly mistrustful of it himself. “I don't feel any different with them.”

Erwin nodded. “I'll watch you. Keep close.”

“And don't let them climb on top of the playground equipment,” Mike added. “They know they're not supposed to be up there.”

Petra suddenly became very fidgety. She shifted under Mike’s stern gaze like she feared he would remember that her punishment had not been served. She reached out and took Levi by the hand like it was nothing, tugging at him to pull him away. The drake jumped, his eyes shooting down to the small point of contact and pausing when he noticed her fingers. They were pigmented--not like his, which were almost black. Petra’s were the lightest powder blue, her nails only a slightly darker shade--pretty as a nail polish. They weren't coming through as strongly as Levi’s were, but she had them--carryover traits. Auruo had them, too, in a seafoam green that matched his gleaming scales. 

Levi could only stare at them in fascination as Petra pulled him away, completely unaware of his interest. “Be gentle with my friend,” Erwin called to the youngling. “He’s a landlubber, I'm afraid.”

“Aye, aye!”

Auruo took a couple steps back as if to follow them, but he stopped himself just before he turned, changing his mind at the last minute. “Levi is your friend?” He asked, his expression perplexed. “You don't smell like friends.”

“What do we smell like?” Erwin asked. Auruo was older than Petra. Could he already be picking up on pheromonal messages, or was that something that Petra could do, too? If she could, she wasn't old enough yet to realize that it mattered. 

_ “He  _ doesn't smell like anything. You smell like him, though.” Auruo leaned forward, his tiny nostrils flaring as he tried to place what he was smelling on the detective. “It's like he's marked you as his. Not like friends. Like something else.”

Ever on the lookout for learning opportunities, Mike spoke up to say, “I think you must be smelling Levi's claim on Erwin. They're courting. That's something dragons do to see if they want to be together like Nanaba and I are together.”

“Will I do that, too?”

Mike involuntarily glanced up at Petra before he answered. “I think you will, yes.”

“They aren't siblings?” Erwin asked as Auruo darted off, transitioning into his dragon form mid-run and nearly falling over in his haste. 

“They look a lot alike, don't they?” Mike laughed. “They had different mothers, though you wouldn't believe it the way he follows Petra around like a shadow.” 

“Do they form attachments this soon?” Erwin asked, his attention mostly centered on Petra and Levi where she still had him by the hand and appeared to be explaining the importance of their secret hideout under the slide. 

“Not exactly. Sometimes younglings will become very close and they’ll grow into a courtship as they age, but they don't experience the allure until they reach sexual maturity. This is how breeders know where to place a youngling. They demonstrate interest without demonstrating  _ interest.” _

“Like a pre-courtship?”

Mike shrugged. “That's a term for it. Some dragons that pass through private hands aren't bonded to their humans as mates. If they go home too young they can end up forming a parental attachment to adults and a sibling attachment to children. Often this happens when parents bring dragon younglings home as a gift to their children. They want those younglings as young as possible so they end up forming family bonds instead of romantic ones and they end up being lonely for the rest of their lives.”

“What happens if a dragon forms a romantic interest in one of the children?”

“Ninety nine percent of dragons are sterilized before they reach sexual maturity, so the bonds they form aren't typically sexual. If they attach to one of the children it's normally viewed as something like a dog choosing their favorite human.”

“Jesus.”

“Sometimes I wonder if the alternative would be worse. The way most people view dragons, discovering a romantic attachment would be mortifying for an average parent. Can you imagine finding your teenager balls deep in the family pet? We would see a lot more abuse than we do today. Abandonment, too.” Mike looked over at Erwin, but it was brief. Both of them were watching Auruo and Petra like hawks guarding a nest. “What about you?” He asked gruffly. “You didn't get Levi neutered and you're proceeding with the courtship. Do you understand what this will mean?”

“It means that I'll have a partner’s libido to take care of.”

“Do you want that?” Mike asked. “If you took away all the other factors involved--the DCA and the judges and all the legal bullshit--if it was just you and Levi, would you want him then?”

Erwin glanced over at the other man, meeting the seriousness on his friend’s face with more than a little skepticism. Mike wasn't typically prone to romantic heart to hearts. For that, he could count on Moblit, perhaps Hanji, Nanaba on a good day. Rarely, Mike. 

“I'm only concerned that you're so wrapped up in saving his life that you aren't considering what it means to mate with him. It's on par with marriage and dragons take it that seriously. If you mate with Levi, it's until death do you part. This isn't something you can easily break off if you decide one day you don't love him. You would kill him.”

Something about the way Mike said  _ kill  _ suggested that he did not mean it figuratively. 

“I don't intend to marry Levi today,” Erwin assured his friend. “I'm considering him as carefully as he is considering me, but if we do go down that road it will be because I know that I can satisfy all of the things he needs from me, including the sex. I promise. I'm thinking it through.”

Mike sighed, though there was still a touch of anxiety there, like he didn't quite believe Erwin’s claims of objectivity, but a flash of movement drew both of their eyes and they looked up just in time to see Levi sprinting nimbly across the top of the playground equipment, catching Petra around the waist without losing momentum and dropping all the way back to the ground without missing a step. God, he was agile. He'd taken those monkey bars as smoothly and confidently as anyone else would have jogged down a sidewalk, landing without stumbling even with a squirming, shrieking youngling overbalancing him.  _ “Again!”  _ They heard her squealing.  _ “Again, Levi!” _

“Are you sure he was a fighter and not a gymnast?” Mike wanted to know, pausing as they listened to Levi scold the girl for carelessness while Auruo stood by with his arms crossed, nodding in stern agreement. “Hm. Levi doesn't look like he's having any trouble with them at all.”

Erwin had to agree. He'd seen the drake in the school that day, how tense and uncomfortable he’d been even in the presence of other dragon’s scents alone. The younglings barely seemed to register. In fact, if Erwin didn't know better, he would think that Levi had exchanged his personality for a mother hen’s. “You can tell Nanaba you were right.”

“I wouldn't dare,” the larger man laughed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remind me to write later about the unbelievable, Hollywood-level shitstorm that my week has been. I'm very serious there was a tornado that rolled through my front yard and three relatives in the hospital for three different reasons including two critical care unit trips and one emergency room, one of which is dying of monster, antibiotic-resistant staph infection, there was a fairly major falling out with a friend over something I'm still ... not clear on ... then of course there was the person that died on the interstate twenty feet from my bumper in a smoking, overturned car with a crushed cab. It's been a long week.


	21. Control

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Levi meets Nanaba over tea and doughnuts. Erwin realizes the exact extent of his attraction to Levi.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It seems like I'm always in a hurry when I post these chapters. Someday maybe I'll pour myself a cup of tea and stroll over to my computer in my bathrobe and just be incredibly languid about the whole thing. Sorry for skipping a week. I had to rewrite this chapter several times. I'm also sorry for the garbage chapter titles.

Hanji showed up without any warning. They simply appeared at the wrought iron table like they’d teleported in, looking windswept and flushed and completely in line with the idea. The doctor swung nimbly into an open chair, tossing a jean-clad leg across the seat as they dropped a bag full of doughnuts into the center of the table. They were more careful with the little tray of coffee that they added to it, but just barely. 

“Hell  _ yes,”  _ Mike breathed, pulling the oily bag towards himself. 

“I got tea for Levi,” was the doctor’s reply. Only one cup had the tell-tale tea bag strings trailing out from beneath the lid, but Hanji took that cup and set it aside anyway. “It won't be as good as the kind he's used to.” They reached into their pocket and fished out a handful of crumpled sugar packets, watching Erwin reach automatically for the cup and the sugar with a faint smile on their face. “You're already acting like you're married, Christ. I think you will both do fine in the race.” 

“I think so,” Erwin agreed, opening packets and lifting the plastic lid so that he could add them. “Levi isn't on board, though. He would prefer to make a break for the Canadian border on his own. He argues that there's no sense in risking both of us when he is the only one in danger.”

“Yes, he has a point, of course,” Hanji said, passing out the larger cups. There were two smaller ones as well that could only be for the children. “It would be more sensible to risk one rather than two. But he’s likely weighing the situation as if both sets of odds are equal when they aren’t. He won't make it on his own without being seen by anyone. That is definite. And it's  _ almost  _ definite that he won't make it at all. He's fast, but they will try to shoot him out out of the air when they realize that he does not have a rider with him and he intends to cross into Canada. He will be considered a stray or a runaway--a rogue. His odds alone are worse than your odds together. That should also factor into his decision.”

“It hasn’t so far. I don’t think I’ve put it that way.”

“Then for his sake, you should. What does he think of your willingness to race with him?”

“I’m honestly not sure. I know which method he prefers, but he hasn’t said much about his reasoning. I intend to find out, though.”

Hanji nodded, appeased by that answer. 

Mike grunted. “Incoming.”

Hanji had a couple of seconds to reach out and grab the edge of the table before a pair of tiny blonde blurs were swiftly colliding with the backs of their legs. 

“Hanji!”

“Hanji, have you met Levi?” Petra demanded to know. “He's my first mate.”

“I’m the ship,” Auruo added proudly, not wanting the importance of his role to be overlooked. 

“I remember you, of course,” Hanji assured him, lifting the child effortlessly onto a hip and passing him the doughnut they'd just taken from the bag. “You are the most seaworthy vessel I've ever had the pleasure of sailing on. And I’ve met Levi, though I think he still had his eye when I saw him last.” The doctor raised their head to watch Levi as he approached them more reluctantly, following behind the children like he realized that they would not be returning quickly when there were doughnuts and decaffeinated coffee on offer. He made a strange pirate in Erwin's oversized bathrobe, lifting the patch away from his eye and pulling it over his head to remove it like he knew that too. 

Erwin found himself smiling faintly as he took in the picture Levi made--reaching placidly to flatten his hair where the eye patch had ruffled it. “Hanji brought you something.”

“It's made from a teabag,” the doctor shrugged, like that said something about its quality, and Erwin understood--not for the first time--that the grocery store tea he'd kept on hand for his friends had been silently pitied for years. Levi murmured his thanks when Erwin handed the steaming cup over, but he did not seem to be including Hanji in the sentiment. Or perhaps he was. It was difficult to tell when the dragon wasn't looking at anyone in particular--his newly acquired  tea holding much more interest for him. Hanji treated it as a thank you, though, and replied in kind. 

“You're very welcome.”

The younglings had a lot to say. They told about their exploits, the Lost Boys they’d defeated and the treasure they had hidden someplace safe from adult eyes. When Mike asked Levi where it was, the drake only stared at him, giving him nothing. It could have been loyalty or incomprehension. If the drake had ever played pretend a day in his life, Erwin would have found it surprising. The concept seemed so utterly alien to him. He wondered how long Levi had lived with that first family before they returned him. If they had children, had they played with him? It didn't look like they had. 

None of this affected his standing with the younglings. Auruo’s eyes seemed connected to Levi by magnetism. The boy was completely enthralled, studying Levi intently and changing his own posture in small stages to match. When Levi reached for his cup, the youngling did, too, grasping it across the top exactly the way Levi did, his expression as serious as a scientist conducting a study. If the drake noticed any of this, he didn't show it, but he always seemed aware of the children. Even listening to the adults, he seemed to be lending a constant portion of his attention to Auruo and Petra. Erwin had seen Nanaba do something similar and had dismissed it, thinking it was just her--the way she would reach out and take a wandering youngling by the hand without ever disrupting the conversation she was having, or the way she would snap her fingers to break up minor squabbles, like she was reminding them that she had her eye on them even if she didn't look it. Erwin had believed it was an offshoot of her incredible ability to do forty things at one time, but suddenly he wondered if there was more to it than that. Perhaps it related instead to those protective instincts they'd all been talking about--the same ones that saved Auruo and Petra from Levi’s training. He watched Levi in his periphery as he sipped from his own cup, becoming more and more convinced that he was correct. 

“I brought some things,” Hanji was saying, reaching into their bag and pulling out a thick spiral-bound notebook. “The bulk of it is unresearched. I was simply making notes on how best to prepare.” They met Levi's eyes as they said this. “I know you haven't decided, but we can't afford to do one before the other. You'll have to think while we work. Now,” the doctor dropped the notebook onto the table with a decisive slap. “I've put together a list of supplies based on your most probable route, so it's imperative that we do weight tests right away. That needs to be the very first thing on our list.” They reached into their bag again and resurfaced with a couple of folded maps. “I believe they will send you directly north,” Hanji said, waving for everyone to move their cups and the empty drink tray. Mike set the bag of doughnuts into a chair, the humor in his expression tightly under control. 

“What is that?” Petra asked eagerly, craning her neck to see the map that Hanji was spreading over the table. 

“Does it lead to treasure?” Auruo asked Levi. 

“No.”

“It leads to our hideout,” Erwin continued quickly. “It's the safest place there is, but Levi and I have to prove that we're worthy of it.”

“It's just a circle,” Auruo observed doubtfully. “Does it lead back here?”

“Not to the preserve. The preserve is farther south,” Hanji reached out to place their finger on a long swathe of green. “The dot you see is only where the race begins and ends.”

“So your actual hideout could be anywhere?” Petra asked, impressed. 

“Exactly,” Erwin agreed. “We shouldn't mark these things on maps because you never know who might get their hands on them.”

The girl nodded seriously, her brow pinched like she was thinking of some documents she needed to destroy. But when Erwin looked up, it was Levi he found staring at him, the drake's expression unfamiliar. There was too much there to interpret. When Erwin opened his mouth, he paused, realizing that he could either ask what was wrong or what it was that made his eyes go that soft. 

Mike spoke up before he decided. “Erwin. We should call Nanaba down. She will want to be a part of the planning.” What he  _ didn't _ say was that if they allowed Hanji to start in on that notebook they were flipping through, it would be dinner time before they got around to introducing Nanaba, but everyone present understood that fact without needing any elaboration. 

“I'm ready,” Levi assured, edging back around the table to Erwin. His arm, when it came up around the man’s waist, slid naturally beneath the shirt, a few small fingers hooking over the waistline of his jeans. It was a sensible handhold, but Erwin was a little surprised that Levi thought to choose it, the familiarity of the gesture speaking volumes. The dragon’s dark knuckles were cool where they brushed over Erwin's skin, his body hard with tension where it drew up along his side. 

“What's going on?” Auruo asked, looking up from the map that he and Petra had been poring over. “Is something the matter?”

“We're about to introduce Levi to Nanaba,” Erwin explained. “He's never met a friendly adult dragon before so he's a little nervous.”

“Why don't you and Petra head on back to the play area?” Mike suggested, his fingers moving over his phone as he spoke. “Someone will be back over there in a few minutes.”

“Don't climb onto the roof,” Levi added tightly, his keen eyes following the children as Auruo took a protesting Petra by the hand and led her off. He was clearly more aware of the situation than she was, a little more nervous by whatever it was he detected from Levi. It would be safer for them where they were headed. Neither dragon would risk aiming any fire that way if the situation escalated. They were both too aware of the children. 

“Don't let me kill anyone,” Levi reminded him. “Please.”

“I promise.” He squeezed lightly at the drake’s shoulder, close to the nape of his neck where the nonverbal message would be clear. “If Levi comes too close to losing control, he has given me permission to scruff him.”

Hanji’s small, indrawn breath was immediate. “Really?” They asked, their brows jumping over the rims of their glasses. “To scruff him fully?”

“To do what I need to do. He doesn't want to hurt Nanaba on an intellectual level, but he has a lifetime of conditioning in his way.”

Mike's response was a quiet, “Thank you.” When Levi did not look up, however, the man called his name a little more firmly, drawing his attention. “That thank you is for you.” 

Levi blinked, regarding Mike with more than a little surprise, a little bemusement, over the gratitude he obviously hadn't been expecting. He offered the larger detective a faint nod. It was so small that you'd have to be looking right at him to catch it, but Mike was, and he smiled. Levi looked away quickly, his fingers tightening on the waistline of Erwin’s jeans. For a moment Erwin mistook it for embarrassment, but then he saw light slicing along the courtyard door, winking along the glass as it swung open to admit Nanaba. That was where Levi's eyes had been, watching the door like he was preparing for an opponent to enter the ring. 

“Nanaba has never hurt anyone,” Erwin reminded the quivering drake as his friend stepped into the courtyard and waved, her hands empty. “She's never been taught to fight.”

“Hi, Levi!” She called over to them. She stood there loosely, confident, but she did not step farther into the room, casually hovering just inside the open door. “You spoke to me on the phone this morning, remember?” She glanced around like she was looking for young, impressionable ears before adding. “I was going to give you some  _ tips.” _

Mike's eyes narrowed. “What kind of tips?” He probably already knew. It was there in the tone of his voice--the sudden unpleasant understanding that Levi knew too much about his sex life. 

“‘How to pleasure a man’s asshole’ according to Levi,” Erwin told him anyway. There weren't a lot of things that could turn Mike's ears that hysterical shade of red and he pursued the temptation to tease him out of habit, not because anyone was laughing. The air in the courtyard had gone still with expectation. 

“I have some of those tips as well,” Hanji added cheerfully. “Moblit also enjoys a fair bit of anal stimulation, so you won't lack good information.”

Erwin wasn't sure their attempts to ease the tension were paying off. Nanaba was pointedly avoiding any sort of eye contact with Levi while Levi himself seemed to be seeking it, his chin tipped low as he thrummed violently along Erwin’s side. The detective didn't have to smell their pheromones to know that they were all in a dangerous situation. “Levi,” he said quietly. “Talk to me.”

“Just tell her not to move.”

“Nana,” Hanji called quietly. “Sit down slowly if you can make your body do it.”

“Does that qualify as moving?” The other dragon asked, biting her lip as she glanced uncertainly at Levi, trying to get a read on his status without looking him directly in the face. She didn't look comfortable with it at all, knowing it would delay her exit if Levi went for her, but she lowered herself slowly to the ground, hunching her shoulders and trying to appear even smaller at Hanji’s suggestion. 

_ “Erwin,”  _ Levi warned. 

“Are you having trouble staying in this form?” 

A pause, then a low hiss. “Yes.”

Erwin tightened his grip on Levi's shoulder, a reminder. “Just stay in your human form. Nanaba isn’t the main factor here. You’re just holding your form.”

“There's no way,” he gritted out. “We can't do this in a week.”

“This week isn’t important now. Only this one moment matters. Look at me.” It took Levi a moment, but he did finally tear his eyes from Nanaba. Erwin could see that had his attention, but he didn't have his  _ attention.  _ Levi looked at him the same way he had in obedience, like at any moment the need to face down an enemy would drag his eyes away. Erwin reached around and took Levi by the chin, able to do that when he was smaller this way. “You're good with the younglings because they're small and they're defenseless. Even if you had no instinct to protect them, it would be true. Nanaba is an adult, but being an adult doesn't make her any more capable of protecting herself against you. She has not been taught how to be your enemy. Now look at her.” Erwin released Levi's chin and the drake's head snapped around like there had been a loaded spring in his neck. “Is she behaving the way your enemies have behaved?”

“I know she isn't.” But it didn't make any difference. There was no logic to what Levi was feeling. There was no reasoning with it. The drake did know everything that Erwin told him, but he was beyond it. Erwin could see him attempting to process every word he said--it simply wasn't logic that controlled his reactions. Erwin frowned, uncomprehending. 

But Hanji had been watching them, too. “My god,” they breathed, their voice shivering with the excitement of realization. “Maybe it isn't sight, Erwin. Maybe they didn’t train him to react to an adult dragon, but to an adult dragon’s  _ smell _ . That may be why Moblit’s scent on me put him on edge the last time we met. He knew full well I was human, but he was trained to react violently to that scent.”

“He could control himself around you,” Erwin pointed out distractedly. He was barely listening, focusing instead on Levi's fraying control. He would only have a moment to catch the drake before he grew too large and too dangerous to contain. It was time to withdraw, to reevaluate the situation from a safe distance. If Hanji's new theory was correct then they were wasting their time having the dragons stare at each other from across the courtyard. 

“But  _ I  _ am not a dragon,” Hanji went on. “I may have had Moblit's scent on me, but it would not be as strong or as constant as it would have been on Moblit himself. In addition, my own scent may have taken some of that edge off, but it makes sense. Think of how strongly Nanaba reacted to the alarm pheromones. These are incredibly powerful forces on a dragon’s psyche. But Erwin, if that's how they conditioned him, we know how to start reversing--”

Erwin abruptly stopped listening, feeling Levi's body move against his in a way that was not at all reassuring. He'd seen the transformation begin, the way that muscle and bone shifted beneath the skin. He'd never felt it, but it was unmistakable enough that when he moved, he moved quickly, twisting in Levi’s strengthening grip and curling his fingers around the base of his neck. Levi grunted softly in surprise--a barely audible sound that reached Erwin’s ears only because he was right there next to the source. He was close enough to catch Levi, drawing him up against his body as the drake’s legs gave out. It happened so quickly that Hanji had just barely stopped speaking when it was over, leaving them with the abrupt silence and the rush of unspent adrenaline. Erwin didn't even register what he’d done until he was sinking to his knees, following Levi down. 

“I'm sorry,” he said immediately, tucking the dragon’s head against his own neck where they would soon find out if the scent of him could drive away Levi’s training. “Take deep breaths if you can. Nanaba will stay where she is.”

“I'm sorry, too,” Hanji told them. “I didn't mean to distract you, Erwin. The idea hit me suddenly and I just ...”

“It's okay,” Erwin assured the doctor. “No harm was done.”

Mike released a shaky breath. He hadn’t exactly been holding it because he hadn’t had time to hold it, but he sighed all the same, breathing deeply when he inhaled like he needed the air. “I'm going to check on Nana,” he said quickly. “She may need some aspirin. I damn near had a heart attack myself and I wasn't the one in his way.” Erwin turned his head to watch the other man go, hoping that Levi was watching them over his shoulder. Mike and Nanaba were cute together. They were endearing. If anything could make Nanaba seem more real to Levi, it was Nanaba with Mike. 

“Watch them interact,” Erwin told the drake. He wasn’t able to see details in his periphery, but he saw Mike kneel, probably for the sake of wrapping Nanaba in his arms, sharing her relief. “It isn't Hallmark Channel acting. That is completely genuine. Nanaba has never known the life you lived. Look calmly and you'll see it.”

Levi did not respond, but he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t be able. 

Beside them, Hanji lingered, clearing their throat softly. “Sorry to interrupt. Have you scruffed Levi since the time you did it accidentally? Has he allowed you?”

Erwin shook his head. 

“That’s okay. I’d have been surprised if he had. It’s intimate, what he’s allowing. The best thing you can do for him right now is to stay exactly as you are. He doesn't need to be left alone in this state. It will be stressful, especially with all of us present. The vulnerability is a major deterrent even between trusting partners in a secure location.” They glanced up at Mike and Nanaba. “For Levi, this probably wouldn’t qualify.”

“When do I let him go?”

“Start now. Come off of him easy, though. Don't just let go. Ease up on the pressure, then keep stroking him with your thumb. It will allow him to come back gradually so it won't be a nasty jolt. I'm going to go over there and give you both some space. Thank you, Levi, that's a noble thing you did, giving Erwin permission to scruff you.”

“It was,” Erwin said quietly. He waited for Hanji to walk away from them before he started slowly relaxing his fingers over the back of Levi’s neck. The drake’s breathing had become a little ragged, shuddering on the intake. “You did well. Everyone is safe.” But he wasn't sure if Levi heard him. He was languid in Erwin’s arms, pliant. It hasn't taken long that first time for the man to realize what he'd done and remove his hand from the drake. He only had Levi over the sink for a handful of seconds before letting go. Similarly, it hadn't taken Corine long to dose him. Both times, he'd come out of the tonic state fairly quickly and suddenly, but sitting there slumped against Erwin, he was slow to return to himself. 

First, his muscles began tightening--not so much with tension, though, as regained control. He became less draped, shifting restlessly against the detective, his hips straining weakly against the inside of his borrowed clothing. Erwin interpreted it as restlessness at first, before Levi’s head rolled to the side and his flushed lips pressed into the skin along Erwin's throat. It wasn't likely that he was aware of what it meant--should mean. He was seeking tactile stimulation with the small bit of muscle control that he had, heat radiating from his cheeks, his neck, as his blood pressure rose. His lips were as hot as a brand against Erwin’s skin. The drake was rapidly becoming overstimulated. The movement of his hips was attempting to form into a rhythm--the small, stilted motions as unmistakable in their meaning as the hard outline that marked the front of his pants. 

And it would be a lie to say that Erwin’s body did not offer any reply. He stilled his thumb as quickly as he dared, adjusting Levi’s weight in his arms. There was an inarticulate sound of protest, muffled against Erwin’s neck where the hot breath sent a smooth thrill of electricity over the detective’s throat. Levi had only just begun touching him, had only just become confident doing so. This can’t have been anything he felt comfortable doing--would feel comfortable doing in retrospect. When the heat ebbed out of him, Erwin wasn’t sure what would remain. And yet, the dragon moved, sounding very nearly in pain as their situation made his pleasure more of a torment.

“Levi,” he asked. “Do you need me to--”

“Nn!”

“I understand, it's alright. We can just sit here for a minute.” It was a relief--not because Erwin didn't want to touch Levi that way, or because the idea of pulling the drake from his sweat pants and wrapping his fingers around him was repulsive. It wasn't. The heat pooling in Erwin's own abdomen was testament enough to that. He was  _ relieved _ that Levi's body did not need something that his mind did not desire--that neither of them felt ready to broach. 

The detective reached up and let his fingers wander into Levi's hair, smoothing over the downy undercut and venturing upwards into the longer strands. His movements were slow, soothing, and he felt the drake’s eyes flutter shut, close enough to his throat that the lashes whispered fetchingly against his skin. Erwin didn't think for a moment that it was relaxation. The drake's rib cage was working too hard, his thirsty lungs taking in long, deep breaths like he sought to calm his body’s need with willpower alone. His hips stilled. Slowly, that iron control reasserted itself. Erwin understood why Hanji chose to step away--why all of them were keeping a respectful distance. He could hear them talking, ignoring them as best they could, politely. This wasn't something for a crowd to see and all of them had known to expect Levi’s response. 

“It wouldn't be just breeding,” he said after a moment, his voice strained. 

“I know,” Erwin promised. “I'm going to stay just like this. Or if you need relief, I'm sure Hanji would offer.”

“I don't want relief,” the drake gritted out. Erwin could barely separate his voice from the sounds of his friend's conversation, muffled as Levi was by the titillating position of his mouth. “Not that way. Not by being touched.”

“At all?” Erwin asked, his hand slowing over Levi's head. “Do you want me to lay you down?”

“No.”

Erwin figured that meant he was excluded from Levi's  _ no touching  _ request. “Do you want to go?”

“Yes. But we're too close. We don't have time to do that.” It was true, they didn't. 

“We also can't afford to push you too far,” Erwin pointed out. “There are risks there as well.”

“Keep touching my neck, then. I don't mean grabbing it. Do what you did with your thumb.”

Erwin hesitated. There was merit to the suggestion, and having an orgasm in front of three of Erwin’s friends did seem like the least terrible of all the things that could go wrong. “That would be torture for you.”

“Maybe. But if it is, then it's temporary. Death is permanent.”

Erwin let himself mull it over, his hand in Levi's hair as soothing to himself as it was to Levi. After a moment, when the drake moved, his intentions were clear. Without speaking a word, Erwin went with him, lifting as Levi pushed so that by their combined efforts Levi was able to get his legs under himself. From there, it wasn't far to the table. A few shaky steps and he was safely seated in Mike's vacated spot, holding onto the edge as Erwin pulled another chair around so he could join him. As the others took notice and started drifting over to join them, Levi reached down and took Erwin's thigh in hand, using it to subtly hold some of his weight. From across the table, the position would look fairly casual. Only Erwin could feel the truth. 

“Are you two staying?” Hanji asked, eyebrows rising with interest. “If you are, we could take advantage of the lingering relaxation Levi is feeling.” Their eyes hovered somewhere around Levi’s neck, where Erwin’s thumb had reluctantly returned. “We could see if it’s any easier for him to tolerate Nanaba under the circumstances, if you both think Levi can bear it.”

“He can,” Erwin assured them. He wasn’t convinced himself, but Levi wanted to stay. “What would it do to him if I kept stroking the back of his neck? Would there be any long term effects? Your book mentioned something about stress.”

“Perhaps.” Hanji frowned at both of them, though it was more thoughtful than admonishing. “It depends a lot on the individual and their relationship to the person doing the stroking. The stress is really a major concern with the scruffing. Inducing full tonic immobility for too long is ill-advised, but you could stroke many dragons for hours in the same spot with the opposite effect.”

“I do,” Mike agreed. “Nana likes it while we're laying there watching television. She says it’s like having a full body massage, though I don't know where she figures that. I'm a terrible masseuse and she won't let anyone else try it.”

Levi glanced over at the spot where Nanaba still sat, though she had stretched her legs out and was leaning back on her hands. She looked relaxed enough to Erwin, but Levi did a double-take, his eyes sharpening as they caught something in her posture or expression that set him on edge. Or maybe he'd caught a whiff of her scent. Erwin didn't want to make anything of it. He simply reached around Levi and grazed his thumb once more across the back of his neck. 

“He may be a little hypersensitive,” Hanji warned him. “One function of tonic immobility in adults is to prepare the receiving partner for mating, so he may still be receptive.”

He was. Erwin had a clear view of his lap beneath the table and didn't think Levi had ever completely cooled down, but the contact didn't seem to be making it any worse. The drake took a slow breath in and released it, his muscles loosening. It wasn't entirely the effects of Erwin’s thumb on him, either. Erwin saw the willpower that went into that relaxation, the way he was able to take the small distraction that the detective provided and use it to separate his attention from Nanaba. 

“I think you can try joining us,” Erwin said to her. 

As she stood and approached the table slowly, Erwin added a little precautionary pressure, pressing the pad of his thumb lightly into the center of Levi’s neck. The small shiver that rolled through the drake was not a dangerous one--not judging by the way his eyelids fell. He watched Nanaba warily as she pulled the fifth chair out and sat, but he did not show any visible sign of straining against his dragon form. His eyes were full of steely determination, calling upon wells of mental fortitude that had nothing to do with the placement of Erwin’s thumb. This was something all his own, given a chance to show itself once the edge came off his conditioning. All he'd needed was a little advantage. It was an incredible thing to watch.

For a moment, they all sat in disbelieving silence, amazed that the dragons were sharing a room, much less a table. 

“I think we can undo Levi’s conditioning,” Hanji finally spoke into the silence. They sounded certain. “This is progress, for sure, but you can't keep your hand on Levi all of the time. I think I know how we can truly reverse it.”

Four sets of eyes swiveled over to the doctor. 

“It's scent that they used to condition their fighters. That's true, isn't it, Levi?” Levi only looked at Hanji, but they were not deterred. “If that's the case, then your trainer would have had to couple the scent of an adult dragon with some sort of unpleasant stimuli so that you begin to associate the smell itself with unpleasantness. With repetition, they have formed the foundation for some pretty solid training. But such a thing can be undone by doing the reverse. If we can take a dragon’s scent and expose Levi to it at times when he is the most content, regularly, it should allow Levi to at least become desensitized if not altogether amicable.”

“So essentially, I have to spoil the dragon rotten and open a vial of eau de Nanaba under his nose?”

“Doesn't sound like a bad deal to me,” Nanaba drawled, her eyes sliding over to Mike. “Any time you want to recondition me, I'm game for it.”

“This can't be our only tactic, of course,” Hanji continued, picking back up where they left off before Mike could start flirting back. “The method I'm suggesting would not be quick enough on its own. We will need to couple it with meetings like this one, continued telephone conversations with Moblit and Nanaba, anything we can think up.” Hanji regarded them seriously over the top of their cooling coffee. “And we will need  _ plenty _ of meetings like this one.” They slid the map around so that the others could get a better look. “As far as the race itself is concerned, we can be fairly well prepared. The exact route is kept secret and it changes every year, but it will look roughly like this one. I wish I'd saved the map they leaked several years back. This is what I remember from it, but I wasn't paying the closest attention at the time.”

“No, this is more than we had before,” Erwin assured them, turning his attention to Mike and Nanaba. “And you two have flown north to camp. You know some of this territory.”

Nanaba snorted. “We haven't gone  _ that  _ far. Erwin, that right there is the arctic circle.”

The detective leaned forward across the map, where he realized that their estimated course hit the coast of the Beaufort Sea before finally turning back south. That was a long way up. “You think they’ll send us into the Arctic?”

“I don't  _ think.  _ The route changes, but crossing over the sixty-sixth parallel is standard to every race.” When Erwin continued to stare, they shrugged. “I told you it was grueling.”

“How do we survive something like that?” Erwin asked. 

“The right equipment,” Hanji stated. “And strategy.”

“I’ve never gone camping in extreme temperatures. Only in the spring and fall.”

“I have a little experience,” Mike told them. “Dad and I used to go when he was younger. You can't compare where I've been to the arctic, but I do know how you can keep your boots warm.” Erwin would take warm boots. It was better than nothing. 

“I don't suggest you actually spent the night in the arctic,” Hanji said. “Or anywhere close to it. You will need to take it all in one trip, sleeping as far south of it as you can. These are the things we will need to go over. You need to know what to expect.”

“And how to pitch a tent,” Mike snorted. 

Levi shook his head lightly, but did not say anything. Erwin knew better than to think he was trying to shake the detective off, so he did not let go of him. He knew what idea Levi was rejecting. 

“I put together a rough supply list based upon what I know of the geography and weather conditions in these areas, but Mike will need to check behind me as I've never been cold-weather camping.”

“Of course,” Mike agreed, taking the copy of the list that Hanji slid over to him. 

“That one is yours. I made several. Leave the supplies up to us, Erwin. You need to focus on Levi.”

“And learning how to use all this shit.” Mike's eyebrows made amused crescents over his eyes. 

“And the weight tests. We will have to be very careful with what you take with you. Levi is strong, but he's small, and even a little too much weight can become exhausting quickly in an endurance situation. Ideally, you must also be capable of carrying all of these supplies in your human forms as well. There may be situations where you must temporarily leave your dragon form behind, Levi, like if your route takes you underground or bad weather forces you from the air. We need to get you a saddle right away because that plus Erwin’s weight will already be quite a bit. No offense, Erwin.”

“We're going to need a saddle?” The detective asked. The distaste in his voice was clear. 

“In spite of what popular opinion suggests, a dragon’s back did not come about with the human ass in mind,” Nanaba stated frankly. “You're going to need a saddle if you want your balls to work when Levi needs them.” She winked across the table at the bemused drake. “I’m looking out for you, Shorty.”

“You don't use a saddle when you fly north to camp, do you?” Erwin asked her, choosing for the moment to ignore everything remotely close to the region of his balls--particularly the issue of Levi needing them. 

“We aren't endurance flying,” Mike pointed out. “There's a difference between flying for half a day and flying non-stop for weeks. Trust Hanji on the saddle.”

“Think of it as a fancy ass pad if that makes you feel better,” Nanaba said, a languid humor in her voice over Erwin’s saddle plight. 

“In fact,” the doctor murmured, “we’re going to want to get that fitted today in case they need to make adjustments.” They glanced quickly at their watch. “Do you two have time for that?”

“If we go fairly soon,” Erwin said slowly with a look at his own watch. The way Hanji’s mind moved was like a pinball in a machine, all high speed and sudden direction changes. “I need to drop some case files by the precinct, but that can happen afterwards.” He couldn't help but meet Mike’s eye when it came up. They hadn't spoken much over the loss of Erwin's case. They hadn't had much time to mourn it and, apart from the concern Erwin felt for those other dragons, he was too busy worrying about Levi to regret that it had been taken from him. Still, the other detective commiserated. He knew what a cop’s case meant to them--what it became. 

“There's so much to do here,” Hanji sighed. “We’ve barely gotten started.”

“We could conference the rest,” Mike suggested. “Later tonight.”

“We’ll be up,” Nanaba assured Hanji. “Mike and I can take over the initial equipment list if you want to go with Erwin and Seabiscuit to fit the saddle.” She stood and turned the map to face her more fully, ignoring the tension that sprang into Levi's shoulders when she moved. 

“Relax, Shorty, I'm not going for your jugular.” She simply pulled her phone from her back pocket and raised it over the map to snap some photos, sliding it aside into Hanji’s waiting hands so that she could photograph the map under that one as well. Hanji had brought each Canadian province along with the larger map of the country, and Nanaba documented each as Hanji folded. 

“Can you stand?” Erwin asked Levi. 

“You haven't quite turned my legs into jelly,” the drake snorted. And true to his word, he was slow to move, but he was steady when he did. 

“I’ll need to follow you,” Erwin told Hanji. “I haven't the faintest idea where we’re going.”

“The arctic, apparently,” Levi muttered, but Hanji answered Erwin themselves with a grin. 

“The place is called West Coast Dragon Outfitters. Moblit’s birthday gift came from there last year.” They raised their eyebrows suggestively. “They sell excellent leather. You’ll need to look into something similar for yourselves. Admission rules require that you be in racing colors at the starting line and for Levi that means synthetic dragonhide. It's the only substance they've found that will remain in tact as a dragon shifts in and out of their two forms. It will also keep him a little warmer in his dragon form. This material holds heat extremely well.”

“And it certainly sounds like we’re going to need all the extra help we can get.”

“You're going to need a set as well,” Hanji advised. “Obviously, you won't need them for their ability to move with you as you shift, but their thermal regulation is top in their class. I would use your racing colors as a base and pile additional clothing on top of that.”

“I'm not committing to anything until I see what we’re talking about. Levi can have a pair, though.” The drake's eyes snapped sideways to Erwin’s face, silently affronted.

Hanji simply rolled their eyes. “Then Levi can watch you freeze to death.”

“Be careful you don't jinx that,” Mike warned them, but Hanji simply waved the comment aside, their practical mind disinterested in anything of the sort.

The group said their goodbyes quickly out of consideration for Levi's discomfort, which was growing exponentially with every moment they spent in Nanaba’s presence. The children were disappointed that Levi couldn't stay to play, but they were easily appeased with promises of a second date and popsicles from the kitchen. Levi held himself together admirably through all of the delays, but when he'd climbed up into the SUV and closed the door behind him, he seemed to deflate, utterly spent. 

“It will get easier,” Erwin promised. They were waiting on Hanji, who was back in the courtyard carefully swabbing Nanaba's scent glands for the pheromones that Levi had been taught to hate. They would return with several containers, Erwin knew, so they could replace them as the scent faded from each. He watched Levi for a long moment, wondering if the time was right for the question that was on his mind. 

“Just ask,” Levi snapped. “The thoughtful staring is putting me on edge.”

Erwin hadn't realized that Levi could discern the nuances of his various stares. “They did condition you using a dragon’s scent? You never answered Hanji when they asked.”

“They started as soon as the family I was with returned me.”

“They returned you when you were still a youngling, didn’t they? You weren't an adult yet yourself?”

“A little older than Auruo.”

“How did they do that?” Erwin asked him. “Did they hurt you?”

Levi swallowed once, and that would have told Erwin everything on its own even if Levi had not been willing to answer. But he was, and there was no emotion in his tone. When he spoke, it was passionless, practical. 

“I don't think there's a pleasurable equivalent to the things they did.”

_ “When _ you were Auruo’s age?”

“A little older,” Levi repeated. “When they started.”

Erwin sat back in his seat, unable for the first time to keep the malignant tendrils of doubt from slipping in. They had trained Levi in the most thorough way that someone could be trained. They had started young--a time when learned behaviors had a tendency to stick. No pleasurable equivalent, Levi had said. Erwin thought of the case files in his trunk and ardently wished that he could keep them. He wanted to be the one sitting across the table from the people responsible for violating Levi that way. A youngling. He wanted to look into the eyes of the person who legitimately believed they had that right and he wanted to see how far down the path to hell he could see. 

But all he could do was wait for Hanji and swear to himself, over and over again, that the sick bastards had not managed to kill Levi. 


	22. Tail

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erwin and Levi get themselves outfitted for the race and run the last of their day's errands, but they pick up some unwanted stragglers somewhere along the way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to start replying this weekend in earnest to the messages in my inbox so I apologize in advance for the delay and the inundation. I'm a grossly shy person so I have trouble sometimes with normal human being things like hitting the reply button on messages, evidently. I have always appreciated every comment you guys leave and I enjoy writing back to you, so don't interpret my draggy ass as apathetic, pls. <3

West Coast Dragon Outfitters was, in most ways, exactly what Erwin had expected. Knowing he was to get a saddle there, he had anticipated versions of equipment for that purpose, for insane dragon dressage, for racing, perhaps for the bedroom. The strong smell of leather--real and synthetic--was unsurprising, as was the array of other equipment such as saddle bags and boots, a full section of clothing at the back, odds and ends. Erwin hoped that the riding crops were for sex and not for dragon-related sporting activities. Levi's eyes paused on those as well and lingered, his expression dark as he shrugged out of Erwin’s bathrobe and shifted into his dragon form. Erwin found himself in the awkward position of wanting to be reassuring while struggling with the possibility of having to explain BDSM to a drake who barely seemed to realize that if he and Erwin were to complete their courtship and they wanted to have intercourse, someone's dick would be going into someone’s ass. 

Erwin refrained. 

The proprietor was smoothly polite without being simpering or over the top. He had modeled himself to please a certain sort of clientele, and Erwin barely caught the appraising look he was given as he stepped deeper into the store with Levi at his side, Hanji sweeping excitedly around them and breathing in the expensive odors. They had gone in ahead of Erwin and Levi to ensure that there were no dragons on the premises, returning with a thumbs up and an easy assurance that the proprietor had agreed to turn his open sign to accommodate their strange circumstances. Probably, it was slow that afternoon. They'd come right around three o’clock--that strange, in-between time when no place in the world seemed to be busy. 

“Welcome,” the proprietor said, stepping forward to receive them into the store without once showing on his face what he thought of Hanji smelling his merchandise. His quietly elegant name tag read  _ Peter. _ “Can I help you?”

“My friends need outfitting for a race,” Hanji explained simply. “They will need a saddle and racing colors. Perhaps saddle bags.”

Peter’s eyes moved to settle fully on Levi, giving him his full attention for the first time since he entered. “This is your intended mount, Sir?” He asked Erwin. He had been at the back of the store when they arrived, and having missed seeing Levi’s human form, he was looking at the drake like he wanted to tell him that the section in the back marked “Indulgences” was for grown-ups. 

“This is Levi,” the detective told him. “He and I will be racing together.”

“I apologize.” Peter did sound legitimately apologetic--something he'd probably picked up from his sales experience. He sounded that way, but he had a slight cast to him, the way his eyes landed on Erwin as though he'd spotted a cockroach. “In accordance with federal law, we don't fashion saddles for younglings. An adult man’s weight can severely impact a young dragon’s spinal development, so this establishment prefers not to promote--”

“Oh, Levi isn't a youngling!” Hanji interrupted easily. It wasn't hard to do. Their voice was louder than Peter’s carefully subdued refinement. “He's an adult.”

Erwin had stopped seeing Levi’s dragon form as small. Standing beside him, the drake didn’t feel particularly small, but Erwin didn't often see dragons in their natural forms. It was a rare sight, even for Moblit and Nanaba. Indoor places simply did not accommodate adult dragons very well, or at all. 

So it had taken the detective a moment to realize what Peter was talking about. He shook his head, agreeing with Hanji. “I can assure you that Levi’s spine is fully developed.”

“It has been for a  _ while _ now.” When Levi’s head turned to better ensure that Hanji received the full force of the glower he sent their way, the doctor shrugged unapologetically. “You know I wouldn't lie to you about your age, Levi. If it helps, you still look magnificent.”

The drake snorted. But the proprietor was still looking at the strange group like he wanted to ask them to leave. “How old is he?”

“I'm not entirely sure,” Erwin had to admit, though he did so without hesitation. “Our circumstances are complicated.”

Now openly skeptical, Peter shook his head. “I've never seen an adult dragon so small. If you don't mind having him shift back into his human form temporarily, I can verify his age.” He clearly expected them to refuse or be caught in a lie. He had dropped some of his practiced charm in favor of a sort of firm authority--the leading edge of something much less friendly. 

It was a testament to how long their day had been that Levi’s dragon form simply shrank away, only a touch inelegantly as his stress and exhaustion made itself known. He didn't bother looking to Erwin for reassurance, and when he'd finished he crossed his imperfect hands over his chest and tucked the fingers beneath his arms, his expression suitably forbidding. 

But his bare feet were dark, too, and his spine. All of this was clearly visible from Hanji’s position behind Levi’s scarred and naked body, where they stood with their lips parted in frank astonishment at what they saw. An indrawn breath was the only reaction they gave, but Erwin noted it. 

“I think I'm in my thirties,” Levi said coldly, speaking for the first time to a complete stranger. It was shaping up to be a day of firsts. It was probably stress that caused him to continue, his toleration of frustration very low right then. “I was a malnourished champion fighter at an illegal fighting ring. If you call me a youngling again I will bite your head off and swallow it. Please fit us a saddle.”

Into the horrified silence that followed, Hanji whispered, “I think that’s the most words I've heard him say at once before.”

***

Peter had been vehement in his apologies. 

Levi was measured. He was measured in his dragon form, begrudging and tense as the proprietor threw his tape measure across Levi’s back, efficiently measuring for the girth strap, the chest strap, the seat of the saddle. Apparently, there were a good deal more attachments involved with saddling a dragon than a horse. Erwin was asked to page through a neatly  bound volume depicting each style that was available. It would be a rush job and they chose accordingly, taking Peter’s advice on which would be the easiest for his craftsmen to complete quickly.  _ Artisans,  _ he'd called them. 

Levi and Erwin were both measured for their racing colors. Peter took Erwin’s down first, calling measurements to Hanji as they wrote. By the time it was finished, the man had enough measurements to make a three dimensional model of Erwin’s entire figure--which he supposed that in some sense, he was doing. Levi refused to let Peter approach him in his softer human form. What he would tolerate as a dragon he would not risk as a human, requiring Erwin to learn very quickly how to take someone's measurements. 

It was different measuring a naked body than a clothed one. It felt more invasive, even though this was the body he'd seen around his house for weeks. Where Erwin had felt little to no apprehension over being measured himself, he went about Levi’s with a carefully concealed awkwardness. For both their sakes, he took Levi’s inseam from the back rather than kneel in front of him, and he was careful not to accidentally brush anything.

The drake’s testicles were very well-formed, he noted. Scientifically. 

They chose their colors--dark blue and white with accents of forest green. Erwin wouldn't have expected the combination to look as good as it did, and when they compared their choices to the registry they found them unclaimed. Hanji found two practical, lightweight saddle bags that could be detached and carried on their backs if the need arose. Those were the only purchases Erwin was able to take with him that day. They went into his trunk by the case files. 

The ride to Erwin’s precinct was mostly silent. Both Erwin and Levi were still reeling from the overwhelming shopping experience and Hanji had taken their pleasant chatter home with them when they parted ways. Neither of them really felt like turning the radio on, preferring the road noise and the rush of air outside to an excess of sound. And for a while, the silence soothed like a balm. Erwin was fairly relaxed by the time they pulled into the precinct parking lot. 

“Do you want to go in or stay?” Erwin asked. “There are no dragons on staff. The only ones inside will be the ones we still have in holding from the stable. If they haven't been relocated.” He hadn't heard much from the precinct for the past handful of days, particularly on the matter of the DCA. He could see the sense in keeping that information close to them until they were sure where jurisdiction would fall, but he’d heard it himself from the DCA. Their case would ultimately take priority. A MARV-d issue trumped humanitarian concerns and hashing it out bureaucratically was just a formality. 

“I'll go in,” Levi answered. He, too, sounded moderately relaxed. Any tension Erwin heard in his voice probably originated from the simple truth that he was about to willingly follow Erwin into the place that would have held him prisoner, too, if he had been more cooperative and less lucky. Levi eyed the exterior warily. 

Erwin had to pause at the back of the SUV, one of the boxes hanging half in and half out where he held one end in his hands. It had hit him where they stood, amicable--more than amicable--in a place that Levi would have killed him to avoid just a few weeks prior. “We’ve come a long way in a short time, haven't we?”

Levi turned to look at him steadily. “I bet you wish you’d used two syringes of that tranquilizer.”

Erwin didn't have to think about that. “I’m glad I didn't,” he said, passing Levi the first box. “I'm not looking at this race as a misfortune. I'm looking at it as an opportunity to win the life that I want for both of us. And,” he paused to pull the other box into his arms, tucking it against a hip so that he could reach up and close the liftgate. “It's an opportunity to explore and test this courtship. We will know each other better by the end than most people will ever know one another. And if we decide we can stand to mate, then I think the relationship would be stronger for what we survived.”

“You would risk dying for all that?”

“Evidently.” Erwin regarded the drake seriously over the remnants of the stolen case in his hands. “I never wished for your death. When I saw that you weren’t beyond hope of normalcy I'd have fought a judge for you on principle.”

“I know.”

“That's something I'd have done for any dragon in your place. This isn't.”

It was clear by Levi's expression that he  _ hadn't _ known that. But he didn't question Erwin any further. He cast his eyes away first, then turned completely, probably to hide the faint flush that his pale cheeks betrayed. “You could charm the pants off a nun,” the drake muttered, and that was all he had to say on the matter. He started first for the building, leaving Erwin to follow at a slower clip. Levi swung the door open as confidently as a veteran cop, like he too had been working there for twenty years, stepping into the warm interior with its vacated reception desk and quiet intake area. They appeared to be having a slow night. 

“We need to take the elevator down to evidence lockup. Left.”

The bank of elevators to the right were public and freely accessed every floor above the main one, but the left ones only went down. These were the secure elevators, called with a fingerprint and directed by voice. Levi looked around like had never ridden in an elevator, but he followed Erwin inside without uncertainty, only curiosity. 

“It's going to move,” the detective warned him. 

_ “Authorization?” _

Levi jumped--not badly--when the security system spoke. His eyes rose to the source of the sound, the innocuous speaker positioned high along the ceiling by the camera. The doors slid shut. 

“They're supposed to do that. Erwin Smith, badge number 1331. Basement level.” 

_ “Authorization verified. Basement level.” _

Evidence lockup was guarded by another fingerprint reader coupled with a simple keypad. Levi had to wait outside while Erwin carried the files in alone since Levi was technically unauthorized to enter, but the drake took one look past Erwin at the endless shelves of boring white boxes and he immediately lost all curiosity anyway. When Erwin’s quick errand was complete, he found the drake leaning blandly against the opposite wall, relaxed now that he was on the inside of the building with nothing like a cage in sight. 

“I need to let my captain know that I've returned these,” Erwin told him. “If he isn't here, I'll have to call in the morning. I’ll be expected back at work any day now, so I will also have to arrange time off for the race.” Luckily, Erwin didn't take much personal time. Vacations were few and far between and he didn't have any close family left so his emergencies were limited to himself and his small group of close friends. Thankfully, they were a collectively lucky bunch--at least until lately. 

Levi nodded slowly, pushing off the wall to follow. 

Zackley was not there, but Nile was. They ran into him as he was returning from the break room with a full cup of coffee and he paused to greet them. The man obviously had no idea that Erwin's case had been seized. He asked about it, asked if this was the tough little drake they'd all heard so much about. Levi stared back in stony silence, unimpressed. 

“This is him. Will Zackley be in tomorrow?”

“As far as I know,” Nile answered, eyeing the drake right back. His look suggested that he thought there might be something wrong with Levi’s mental faculties. “I haven't seen you to tell you, but I found something on the kids you asked about.”

Kids? Erwin hadn't asked Nile to look into anything lately, much less anything involving children. He opened his mouth to tell him so when the other man continued. “Mike had me looking into it for him. I was going to report it tomorrow, but since you’re here--it looks like they are involved in your case.” Then Erwin realized. The humans Levi had asked about. He hasn't realized they'd been so young, figured incorrectly that they must have been around Levi's age. He should have told Nile that he wasn't working the case anymore, that it wasn't his information to have. But--he became aware of Levi’s shape in his periphery, the drake's head turned towards him where he was watching Erwin quizzically. It was  _ Levi's _ information to have. 

“What did you find?”

“Your Jane and John are Isabel Magnolia and Farlan Church--” Erwin felt the surprised inhale, the way that Levi became very still beside him. “--Both were human. Their bodies were found last August in a field across town. There wasn't much left, even the bones, but we were able to get a DNA match off of Church. Magnolia was ID’d by a partial dental match and probability. They were known associates. Each had priors--petty theft, shoplifting, all minor things. My guess is they were stable hands before they caught the wrong end of a dragon. The other workers we rounded up were similar--nothing major on their records, but enough to suggest that they were lowlifes recruited specifically because they were lowlifes.”

“That's all you found out?”

Nile shrugged. “That's all there was. It isn't definite they were even at your stable--only the burns and descriptions suggest it. The fire had to be incredibly hot to destroy bone that way. I put two and two together.”

“They were there,” Levi said quietly, turning to go. Erwin had to thank Nile quickly so that he could follow. 

“Who were they?” Erwin asked. 

Levi didn't answer. He stood at the passenger door and stared at the handle until Erwin unlocked the SUV, then he climbed in and slammed the door behind him. 

Erwin was slow to approach the car. He wasn't sure what he expected to find, but Levi was staring stoically from the passenger window when he arrived, his expression contorted as if in fury. Or agony. 

“Who were they?” Erwin repeated. 

“Family,” the drake answered roughly. 

Erwin turned the car on, but did not move to go. He only did it so that he could get heat moving through the chilly vehicle. Silently, he waited for details that did not come for a long time. 

“I knew.” Levi shook his head, reaching up and pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes as though it was exhaustion and not grief that plagued him. “The stable hands used to lead us to and from the arena. Farlan or Isabel would take me because the others knew I wouldn't hurt them. Farlan took me that night, so it had to’ve been after.”

“You didn't see them after that?”

“The last thing Farlan said to me was that he’d be back after the fighting with antiseptic for the injuries my opponent had given me.” Another pause. “They're the reason I know more English than most.” 

Erwin could connect the dots and realize that improving his English wasn't all they had done for Levi. They were the reason--that mysterious reason--that Levi was not completely out of his head with insanity. They were the reason Levi was able to understand what it meant to connect with others, to interact, to be something apart from the mindless, empty killing machines that the others had been. That was the missing information that made it all click. Isabel and Farlan, the first and only kindness that Levi had known in the life before Erwin. 

“Levi, I'm sorry.”

“I knew,” was all he said. He said it in the same way that other people said  _ I'm fine  _ when they were lying. He would not look at Erwin. 

“What do you need?” the detective asked. If they'd been at home he’d bundle him on the sofa with a pot of tea. Probably. This was something new for them--something Erwin had not yet seen in the drake. He did not know for sure how best to respond to his grief. 

They were some way down the road before Levi made any move to respond. He reached out and curled his fingers over the top of Erwin's free hand where it was resting lightly on his thigh, though he barely looked at the man, his steely pride preventing him from showing Erwin any more than that. “Thank you,” he said haltingly. “For the closure. For looking into it.”

“You're welcome.” It was all Erwin knew to say. He glanced into the back to see if the blanket from their early morning drive was still back there. It was still in the middle seat where Levi had tossed it, so he reached back, his eyes remaining firmly on the road in front of them as he felt for the blanket. He didn't know where the impulse had formed. Wrapping Levi up wouldn't make the pain stop, but he found himself wanting to do it anyway. 

When his fingers closed on air, Erwin glanced back, shifting in his seat to get a little more extension, when his hand froze. That same pair of headlights had been behind them for quite a while, drifting leisurely behind him like a fox following a wolf. He'd been too busy with Levi to actively make note of it, but he'd been watching unconsciously, his subconscious waiting politely to tap him on the shoulder and say,  _ look what I found.  _ It was probably nothing. 

“Levi,” Erwin said calmly. “We’re stopping to get gas.” He pulled the blanket into the front and dropped it into Levi’s lap, where the drake moved sluggishly to arrange it around his body. They'd just filled up after they left West Coast Dragon Outfitters and he was learning enough about cars to lean across the console, his eyes on the gas gauge and prompting Erwin to explain, “I’m trying to determine whether or not we’re being followed.”

Levi turned to look through the back windshield, barely interested. “How do you know? They're just lights.”

“They've been behind us since we left the precinct.” Erwin didn't consider himself a paranoid person, only watchful. He'd been watching extra closely all day, knowing exactly what kind of people he was investigating. Organized crime tended to produce an organized response, though it was bold of them, staking out a police station. “It could be coincidence, but I want to know for sure.”

Erwin pulled them in at the first place they came to, crowded now with an early dinner rush. There were lines at the pumps, so their tail was forced to peel off and join a shorter one. The headlights swung, revealing a dark SUV with dark windows. 

“Don't stare at them,” Erwin warned Levi. “If they're following us we don't want to alert them that we know.”

Levi grunted. 

“Keep your eye on them while I'm at the pump,” he continued as they rolled forward. “If they move, I want to know where.”

“They're following us,” Levi said definitively, his attitude towards the whole thing making a complete 180 from apathy to keen interest in an instant. The driver had just gotten out, visible for a moment over the hood before he turned. Erwin caught a flash of denim jacket as he moved. 

“Do you know him?”

“I've seen him at the fights.”

That was enough for Erwin. He pulled up to the pump and cracked the door open. “Act casual.”

Levi leaned back in his seat, propping his feet up on the dash with pointed deliberation. 

“Perfect.”

Erwin pumped his gas the way he normally would, his eyes scanning his surroundings with dull interest. The SUV was on the opposite side, shielding its driver completely from view. Erwin did not look over his roof at them. He did not rush. When the gas nozzle clicked in his hand he stood there for some time longer, knowing that their view of the numbers on his screen would be obscured by his own vehicle’s bulk. He rolled his shoulders, returned the nozzle to its holder and took his six dollar receipt. Then, to the irritation of the person waiting behind him, he pulled the squeegee from its holder and leisurely applied it to his windshield. 

Across from him, his shadow did this same. Stalling. 

Normally, Erwin avoided gas station squeegees like the plague. They left more debris than they cleaned off, the muddy water stinking with stale soap and neglect. As he wicked filthy water from the windshield, he thought his car probably needed a wash anyway. Levi stared at him flatly from inside the vehicle, like he couldn't see the sense in Erwin’s actions, but he couldn't resist reaching out to point to the streaks that Erwin missed. There were a lot of them. 

Levi was still trying to point out places Erwin missed when the detective finally gave up and returned the ineffectual squeegee to its container. 

“You missed four spots,” the drake let him know. 

“Cleaning the windshield wasn't the point.”

“No, but you should finish what you start.” Now perfectly familiar with every single button, toggle, and switch in Erwin’s car, Levi reached over and flipped the windshield wipers on, scowling when that made the mess worse. It was best, at that point, that Erwin leave before his passenger tried to insist that he get back out and clean the rest. 

Their shadow was ready for them, sliding casually into their lane as they moved back out into the street. “I guess they haven't heard that the case isn't mine anymore.”

“They're going to try killing us, then.”

Erwin experienced the strange sensation of having his instincts align with Levi's own. “Most likely.”

“What will we do?” the drake asked. 

Erwin glanced sideways at him, thinking. It was too soon to call the precinct. Any squad car they sent could spook the men following them and they were too close to their destination to make many more pit stops without drawing suspicion. But they didn't know how many men they were dealing with. No more than four, surely. Five if they squeezed someone into the middle seat. A crew of armed hit men wouldn't risk being pulled over because somebody spotted too many people hunched in the back like a SWAT team. Had they taken Levi into account? He was a force to be reckoned with and they had to have prepared for that. 

“We have the advantage because they think they do,” Erwin decided. “Hopefully, they will not have anticipated how long my driveway is. They will have to pass by when they see it, knowing we would have too much time to prepare if they followed me straight up. They will be forced to drive on and come back around, allowing us a moment to set up our own counter. Climb slowly into the back. There's a duffel bag.”

“Do you want the whole thing?” Levi asked, unbuckling his seat belt and carefully easing through the space between seats, keeping his head down. 

“Please.”

Erwin didn't have to tell Levi to move slowly and stay low. He did that anyway, slithering into the back seat like a lizard and then working his way carefully over the tops of them into the trunk. They had enough distance on their pursuers that their headlights probably could not pierce the tint on the back window, but Erwin wasn't going to risk that and neither, apparently, was Levi. “What is this?” he asked. 

“That's the bag I take to the firing range. There's a .45 and a .32.”

“How many guns do you have?” Levi asked,clearly torn between awe and dismay. 

“Many.”

“But you only have two hands.”

“You never know when you might suddenly have more hands,” Erwin assured him. “Or fewer guns.”

Levi dropped the bag carefully into the back seat, then climbed after it, his bathrobe trailing like a cape. They were turning onto Erwin’s street. For a long time, the rear view mirror was dark and empty. The detective half expected for all of it to be a series of strange coincidences that culminated dramatically with the other SUV blowing by the turn, carrying on towards some destination of its own. But no, Levi had recognized the driver, so it was no surprise when headlights did finally appear, more distance between them now that the roads were less populated. Out here, a car following too closely would certainly be noticed. 

“Don't use your dragon form,” Erwin said, taking the bag and dragging it into his lap. Levi climbed after it, less careful with their pursuers so far behind. The request earned him a strange, abrupt look. “If you have to defend yourself using lethal force, it's better to do it as a human,” Erwin explained. “If you kill a human in your dragon form the DCA can immediately detain you. They would say it was for questioning, only you would never come back. I don't want you to avoid killing at the cost of your own life, but it would be harder for them to say that you lost control if you remain human.”

Erwin had never loaded a gun while driving before. He had to put his forearms on the steering wheel, experimenting a little with his grip before committing to a position that worked. It was slow. He was careful not to swerve, not wanting to draw a lot of attention from the car behind them. He didn't want them to wonder what Erwin was using his hands for. 

“The safety is on, but keep this pointed away from anyone.” Erwin passed Levi the lighter of the two guns, reserving the heavier .45 for himself. It could be a little jumpy in hand, the aim less sure. If Levi had to shoot someone, Erwin did not want him to miss. He had to set the .45 on his thigh, half loaded, so he could turn them into his driveway. “They'll send two of their party to flank the house, so we will position ourselves around the corners at the back. When they turn the corner we can probably deliver a good, hard strike to their heads and take them down without being detected. The others will be back at the front trying the door. As soon as the first two are out, we can slip back around and take them as well. Ideally there will be no deaths.”

Levi looked at him strangely for harboring hopes like those, but he didn't say anything. He simply turned the gun over in his hand like he was studying it. By the time they pulled to a stop at the end of the drive, Erwin had the .45 loaded and ready to go, cutting his ignition and throwing the door open as soon as they were stopped. It was just as Erwin predicted it would be. Seeing the SUV still moving, occupants still inside, their pursuers flashed right on by, disappearing up the road to turn around. Lights were already on in the house, giving an intentional impression of occupation. Erwin left them that way as a precaution, even where he lived out in the middle of nothing. The door was still locked. Perfect. 

Erwin  _ did _ unlock the back door. If they had to retreat, they would need to do so quickly. Fumbling for keys in the middle of a gun battle was not ideal. 

“Your safety,” Erwin said quietly, pulling the gun politely from Levi's hands to show him where it was. “Flip it the other way when you want to engage it. Hold it straight out in front of you at the level of your shoulders and pull the trigger, here. That's all you need to do. At close range, you won't have to do much aiming. The bullets will go where you want them.”

Levi nodded slowly, reclaiming the weapon and pointing it carefully at the grass. 

“Keep your finger off the trigger until you're ready to shoot. If you have to clock someone over the head with it and your finger is there, you may end up firing unintentionally.” He waited for Levi to look back up at him before he finished. “Don't shoot anyone that you can knock unconscious, but don't hesitate either. If there's any doubt, shoot them. You come first.”

“Erwin.”

The detective paused in the act of removing the safety from his own gun, his expression quizzical. 

“I know how to kill or be killed.”

“... Of course.” Of course he did. Levi didn't need a lesson on how to decide when to switch to lethal tactics. If it were up to him, there wouldn’t  _ be _ another tactic. The two of them stood there for a moment longer, staring at each other, and Erwin felt as though there was something left undone, unsaid--something he'd forgotten. His fingers itched. His body ached with the vague inclination to move. He wanted to do something, to reach out and touch Levi. He wanted to lean in, to press his lips to the drake's forehead. Maybe part-way there he would change his mind and bend a little lower. 

Light shifted at the front of the house as headlights slid up. The SUV moved slowly as the men inside tried to stay as quiet as they could, but Erwin’s driveway was gravel and it gave their tires away. They were close. 

“Positions,” he said grimly, turning reluctantly from the moment they had almost, but not quite shared. 


	23. Something

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The ambush is concluded and it comes time to deal with the aftermath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure where I'll be tomorrow, so surprise!

It started the way Erwin predicted it would--he and Levi with their backs flattened against the side of the house, the sound of grass crunching underfoot as their pursuers made their way up the sides. The detective was hyper aware of his finger where it rested lightly against the trigger guard. If he timed it all correctly he wouldn't have to move it.  _ One, two-- _ Erwin swung around the corner just as the other man thought to ease around it, his weapon preceding him. It was almost too easy, reaching out and snatching the extended wrist from the air by his head, dragging its owner forward before he'd even registered that an attack was taking place. Off balance, the man stumbled, his startled face coming into range of the quick, efficient strike that Erwin delivered to his temple. The detective did not hesitate, went ahead and hit the other man again as he slumped, his unused weapon landing in the grass with a soft thunk. 

According to plan. 

Then, around the opposite side of the house, a heart-rending scream. It wasn't a human sound. There was too much of that special, hair-raising quality that only a dragon’s throat could produce--not a dragon in their watered down human shape, but a fully realized natural form. The plan flew apart in an instant, scattering with Erwin’s thoughts as he turned and abandoned his position without a second thought. There were more strategic options. He might have pressed on, flanking the others as they turned towards the source of the disturbance, but Erwin was not concerned with their ruined strategy. There was only the fact that every person who had come for them was immediately converging on Levi. 

Erwin turned on his heel and skirted back around towards the last place he'd seen the drake, his sharp mind churning as he went. He'd taken one down. Maybe Levi’s opponent was on the ground, maybe they weren’t. Erwin had to count on at least three more men. _Don't kill anyone,_ he begged Levi silently. His weapon was ready--raised to hit them first. He would have to put them down before Levi got to them and left marks they could not erase. It was something he did not have to think about. 

Erwin came to a halt at the corner to look for the dragon, his training momentarily re-establishing itself over the wild racing of his heart. He pressed one shoulder to the wall and leaned forward to see first what he was preparing to walk into and that precaution saved his life. 

Levi was not the only dragon on his property. There was a second, their head rising in a lethal arc above the second floor window and drawn back like a cobra preparing to spit. Erwin took one look at the creature’s glowing chest and ducked back around the side of the house, narrowly avoiding the long plume of oily flame that spilled over his lawn and leapt high on its hardy chemical diet. The true nastiness of dragon fire wasn't simply the fact that it burned hotter than benzene. The flammable liquids used to produce that fire worked in exactly the same way as napalm, sticking to a target and burning until the fuel--and the target--were consumed. Sure enough, Erwin’s lawn did not immediately darken. The flames remained, bleeding thick black smoke that stung the nose and eyes. 

There wasn't much to hear over the lashing snap of flames and the lumbering motions of a large creature moving indelicately over uneven terrain. He searched blindly for Levi, trying to discern his dark shape through the darkness and smoke-haze and the unhelpful glare of the fire between them. The drake was alive. Their attacker’s larger dragon was reacting to something, lunging, but Erwin could not shoot until he knew where everyone was. He stood there with the gun clasped uselessly in his hands, utterly ineffectual against the incredible force he was witnessing. There was little place for a bullet in this fight. Up against a dragon that size, Erwin might as well be throwing pebbles. 

His weapon was still pointed at the ground when someone seized him roughly from behind, taking a fistful of immaculate hair and slamming Erwin’s head sideways into rough brick. The shock of impact tore through him in an unforgiving rush, his thoughts flying from him as his vision went dark and his knees folded beneath him. It was only for a moment, but his attacker wasn't through. He wasn't as strong as Erwin, but in the moment he didn’t need to be. He had a good handhold and the detective was already on the ground and dazed. 

Beyond the initial shock, Erwin’s attacker did not completely overwhelm, but he made the mistake of thinking he did. He believed that Erwin had been subdued because he was down, taking some sort of cruel pleasure in beating him to death rather than using the gun that he had to be armed with. The detective’s head struck the building once, twice more before he was able to twist just far enough in the man’s grip to fire a blind round into his abdomen. 

The hand in Erwin’s hair disappeared very quickly after that. Somewhere behind him, the man slumped, grasping at his stomach without uttering a sound. He'd been struck silent by pain, joining Erwin in the dewy grass where he fell. The detective reached up to grip the side of the house, knowing what would happen if he let his own ass hit the ground. The way his vision lurched around him told Erwin very clearly that he did not have a lot of time, the world sliding endlessly sideways as he dragged himself to his feet, pushing up the wall and fighting gravity for every inch he earned. There was no time for mercy. He couldn't see well enough to trust his value for human life, couldn't see the next person who would be after his. Vision darkening, Erwin turned towards the wet gurgling sound and the movement, the gun that was probably somewhere in the man’s possession, and he raised his hand, viciously introducing the butt of his .45 to the man’s skull. 

The would-be murderer tipped sideways without any resistance, several hazy bodies occupying the place of one. All six of him would bleed out soon. There was no one to apply the pressure that his abdomen needed. Erwin straightened. 

Two. There would be another somewhere, at least one and probably human if they hadn't taken to a dragon form already. The dragon they’d brought with them would not matter much to anyone, no more than killing a dog that had bitten someone. Levi could get away with it. It was the other human that posed the greatest threat, who could kill Levi from beyond the grave simply for dying at his hands. 

Erwin pulled his phone from his back pocket, the illuminated screen fracturing into a thousand different pieces as he squinted at the numerals and tried to determine which were the ones he needed.  _ 9, #, backspace, #, backspace, 6, backspace.  _ His head swam, thoughts moving reluctantly forward, halting, turning on the spot in confusion. Erwin stared at the screen for a moment, dazed. What had he been doing? He didn't have time for this. He held the button down for voice command, heard the beep from someplace far away and hollow. Clinging with one hand to the corner of the house, he slurred the words, “Dial 911.”

_ “Dial 911, is that correct?” _

“Yes.”

_ “Dialing 911.” _

Erwin dropped the phone into the grass. The dragons in the background should set off alarm bells for dispatch. Someone was screaming like they were dying, their voice sounding ragged and damaged. It didn't sound like Levi and couldn't be him even if it had. Levi was too good for something that had not been been forged the way he had--something that could walk unfettered and obedient by its masters. Erwin looked in that direction, but all he could see were grotesque smears of color. It was nauseating and he was unable to blink it away, stubbornly  fighting sickness because he knew what it meant if he were to let that happen. Vomiting with a head injury meant hospitals. There was no time for hospitals. 

Then he saw a different kind of movement and he froze, uncertain. The ominous  _ crack, crack _ of gunfire drew him more surely than his eyes--his ears still somewhat normal in their ability even if everything did sound like it was happening underwater. Levi could not use a gun in his current form. Someone was shooting at his--

\--at his something. Levi was something to him and someone was threatening him. 

Erwin pushed off the side of the house and immediately wobbled. If that shooter had been focused on him rather than Levi he'd have been killed as easily as a lamb. But the other assailant’s attention seemed to be focused on the dragons, from what little Erwin could see of him. Someone screamed again, a coppery tail lashing the air close enough to the featureless man that he paused. Erwin raised his weapon, knowing he had no cover if he missed, standing out in the open where he was vulnerable with shaking hands, shaking everything, his vision unsteady. Squinting, he lined up the shot, aiming at the most solid of the swimming figures in front of him and pulling the trigger once, twice, again, again, again, changing his angle just slightly with each shot and hoping with everything he had that one of them found its target. 

No one ever shot back at him. 

Erwin slid to his knees, stomach rolling as the ground listed dangerously beneath him like the deck of a ship. At first, he thought he imagined the rush of air, thinking it was the leading edge of unconsciousness until he saw a swirl of movement to his left as Levi fell out of his dragon form, staggering gracelessly to his knees in front of him. 

“Erwin!”

There were hands on his shoulders, holding him up, and Erwin let them, consigning a little of his weight to Levi’s sturdy grip. Through his failing vision, slices of red--red all over him. 

“Is that yours?” He heard himself ask, earning himself a sharp pause. 

“Maybe a little. It's nothing that matters. Erwin, your head is--”

“Smarting a little.” 

“You don't sound right.”

“Don't let me sleep, okay?” Erwin murmured drowsily. “I called for help.” 

Levi's arms were around him. He wasn't sure how he got that way, or when he'd become so chilly. He'd been on his knees a second ago, leaning into Levi, but there hadn't been any arms. It had been sirens that brought him to attention and his view was different now, reversed. When had Levi tucked him against his body that way? The drake was talking to him, telling him that the sirens were coming, asking if that was the help he meant. “Are they safe?” Levi wanted to know. Was he talking to him? “Erwin!” Must have been.

“Are the lights red and blue?” The detective heard himself asking. 

“Yes,” Levi answered. His voice sounded slow, or maybe it was Erwin who processed it slowly. “Red and blue.”

“Police. Red only is the doctor.”

“There's a red only.”

“Did you call them, too?” Erwin asked irrationally. They'd gotten here so quickly, even for first responders. It took him way too long to realize that Levi did not have his own cell phone and likely couldn’t read the numerals if he had. “Have I been unconscious?”

“Not completely,” the drake answered tightly. “I hit you.”

Erwin blinked at him slowly. He didn't feel like he'd been hit. Not in the face anyway. He did feel like he'd been clocked by a blacksmith’s hammer, half his head dented in like they did in cartoon shows. “It's okay. It doesn't hurt.”

Levi looked at him strangely. “I hit you a couple of times.”

“I don’t think I’m into that,” Erwin mumbled irrationally. “Stop talking to Nanaba.”

The drake didn’t answer. The arms around Erwin were abruptly tightening, the small body curling protectively over his. “Stop,” Erwin heard Levi growl, his chest rumbling with the threat. Erwin felt a vague impulse to turn more fully in his grasp, ask him to do it again with their chests pressed together. How neat. But Levi wasn’t paying him much attention, focused instead on someone over Erwin’s shoulder. “What is that?” he demanded, his voice unkind. 

“It's medical equipment,” someone answered from far away. “It’s just medical equipment. We’re here to help.”

“I said  _ stop,”  _ Levi growled. “Stay the fuck there.”

“Your friend needs help,” another voice spoke rationally. “We can help him.”

“Levi,” Erwin murmured. “It's the paramedics. Please don't hurt anyone so you can stay here.”

Levi looked down at the detective, hearing something in his voice that made his expression soften. It was a wonder Erwin could see that around the dark spots that he could not blink away. It was amazing he could see anything around all that mess. His head felt like it was full of sharp rocks. “I'm not going to hurt them,” Levi sighed. Then, in a frightening undertone, “If you try anything I will tear you apart.” And Erwin assumed that was meant for the paramedics because he wasn't sure what he would be trying in his current state. 

They asked a lot of questions, shone lights in his eyes. He was asked to follow somebody’s finger, to blink, to blink again. They asked him more questions. Levi sat him up a little straighter, muttering something rude in his ear about his fat ass, but his arms never left. They came around Erwin from behind, giving the paramedics more access and Erwin something to lean on. The detective let his head loll back into Levi--the side of his head, probably. The drake was warm and Erwin was shivering. Someone lay a crinkly blanket over him, apologizing for not noticing. 

“That guy from the station is here,” Levi narrated. “They're looking at the bodies.”

Erwin heard many more demands from Levi before the night was over. He ordered someone to go away, to deal with the ‘dead fuckers.’ Erwin is alive, he said, and he could answer their questions later. 

He was pretty sure that was Zackley himself that Levi bared his teeth at. 

“Did he kill anyone?” The captain asked him, ignoring Levi's threatening stare. 

“Just the dragon. Anyone else was mine.”

“I’ll keep this out of the DCA’s ear, then,” he said simply. “Until you can answer questions.”

“Appreciate it,” Erwin murmured. 

“Now  _ go away,”  _ his rude protector added, and Erwin was glad that his blurred vision prevented him from seeing the look on Zackley’s face. 

“Thank you for your patience, Mr. Smith,” one of the paramedics finally said, though Erwin didn't know what else he could have done except sit there and let them poke at his face with q-tips and scan his head with some horrible device that beeped and shrilled. He was all patience, a dazed and captive patient. “I'm not detecting any bleeding or swelling in your brain, but the imaging equipment at the hospital would be more accurate. It's up to you whether to stay or go, but I would advise you not to take the chance.”

“Is there any immediate danger?” Erwin asked. He wanted them to go away, not take him with them. All the lights and the questions had his head lit up like the Fourth of July and New Year’s combined into one nightmarish extravaganza. There were even fireworks behind his eyelids when he blinked. 

“Not with your current status, but that could change. If you stay here, someone will need to watch you for signs that you're getting worse.”

“I’ll do it,” Levi volunteered, “if you decide to stay.”

“You would need to be monitored closely,” the young man insisted. 

“Levi wouldn’t  _ stop _ monitoring me.” He wasn’t sure how he knew that. Maybe it was the way Levi had been barking at everyone to get the hell away from Erwin, his hands never leaving the detective. Erwin was glad for that. Without him there, he’d have felt strangely unmoored, like nothing around him was real. 

The paramedic’s eyes slid doubtfully to Levi, but they did not pursue the matter. For the first time since he started working on Erwin, he addressed the drake directly. “Call us back here if you see anything out of the ordinary. He has a concussion, so confusion is normal. So is nausea, vomiting, balance problems, and irritability. If his symptoms get worse than they are now or if they change, that is likely a sign of something more serious developing. If he can't control his eye movements or you can't wake him up or he has seizures, dial an ambulance.”

“So it's okay for him to sleep?” Levi asked calmly, competently. When the EMT answered, he seemed a little more confident in the drake’s ability to keep Erwin alive. But only a little. 

“He can sleep. Just wake him up periodically and try talking to him to make sure his condition isn't deteriorating. If things remain as they are, he should be okay.”

Erwin listened to them talk. They talked and talked. Levi wanted detailed instructions, drilling the man like it was an interrogation. When he finally ran out of things to ask and the paramedics left them alone, Erwin let his head flop to the side, figuring that if he did nuzzle his nose into Levi’s neck a little bit it would be mistaken for confusion. Maybe he  _ was _ confused--not about what he wanted but how quickly he was approaching it. Levi smelled like blood, like smoke, but it didn't matter. He was Levi and he was alive--they both were. “Talking to strangers for my sake,” the detective slurred. “Now I know you care.”

Levi snorted. “Let's get you into the house before I have to fight off your coworkers, too.” He glanced around at the figures moving over the lawn, marking bodies with little tags for the photographers. “It looks like they'll be crawling around for a while.” He changed position behind Erwin, pulling him to his feet with no sign that it required any effort. “Can you walk?”

It bore a strange resemblance to their morning, when Erwin had asked Levi the same question. He breathed a weak laugh that probably looked like ‘confusion’ to Levi, starting to shake his head and stopping himself very quickly when it made him reel. “I can make it a few paces.”

The truth was, he wondered. The first step he took caused him to lunch sickeningly into Levi, who had him around the waist and kept him upright without complaint. Their progress was slow. Erwin stopped them several times thinking he was going to vomit, leaning forward to avoid his filthy clothes like it really mattered whether or not he got anything else on them. They were destined for the garbage can anyway. But nothing ever came up. It was a relentless, teasing game his stomach played all the way to the back door. 

Zackley's officers ignored them for the most part, respecting Erwin's dignity by pretending that they hadn’t seen it bruised. Their only interruption came from Nile, who approached them like he'd rather not. He caught up to them as they were climbing the back stairs, reaching out to Erwin. “You can't have your guns back yet, but we figured it couldn't hurt to return this.”

He was holding Erwin’s cell phone. 

“Thank you,” he said after a long pause. Too long. Nile stood there awkwardly, shifting his weight under the flat stare Levi was giving him. 

“Do you need anything?” The man asked uncomfortably. “Is there any way I can help?”

Erwin opened his mouth to reply, but Levi got to it first. “Tell everyone not to make too much noise,” he said coldly. He closed the door in Nile’s face. 

“He grows on you,” Erwin promised Levi, though the drake wasn't interested in Nile beyond the fact that he'd just been bothering them. He locked the back door behind them without preamble, refusing to take any chances with their hard-won peace. 

“Strip.”

Erwin's head turned so quickly that his knees almost gave out under the onslaught of dizziness that followed. 

“Leave your clothes on the tile,” the drake continued, guiding Erwin's hands to the counter where he could lean while Levi knelt to untie his shoes. He was bossy and efficient, issuing commands like, “Lift your foot,” and “Put it back down,” while Erwin simply marveled over the sight of Levi on the floor in front of him, untying his shoes and peeling them off his feet like he was attending to a three years old. “Come here,” the drake said, realizing, evidently, that Erwin wasn't going to stand successfully without pressing his hands to something. Levi wasn't shy about what he wanted. He simply took the man by the shirt tail and pulled up, half supporting him as the ruined garment passed over his head. Levi tossed it into the floor, far enough away from them that they would not trip when they left, then his hands went to the fastening of Erwin's pants. It didn't occur to him to ask about it, unfamiliar as he was with the concepts of clothing and modesty and what it meant to be undressed by another adult. 

In this case, it meant that Erwin was an invalid. 

His body did not respond to Levi. It hurt too badly and was too exhausted, for which Erwin was quietly thankful. The way Levi’s hands moved over the front of his pants, slipping beneath the waistband to push them down, would have been difficult to treat coolly had his kitchen not been sliding around him like melting wax. Levi paused over the underwear, so maybe he understood modesty after all, but it didn't seem that way. He did not look up at Erwin for consent. He simply stilled for a brief moment like he realized, as Erwin was realizing, that he hadn't seen the detective naked before. The pause wasn't bashful or awkward, just aware. Then it was gone and he’d divested Erwin of the last barrier between them, pushing the fabric over his hips to join the pants in the puddle at his feet. 

“Step out carefully.” Levi held onto him, kicked the garments out of the way with his toes once Erwin was free of their tangle. He paused, then,  to look at the man, his eyes moving slowly down his body. He was coolly assessing, looking for additional injuries, probably, though he did pause briefly at Erwin’s groin, his eyes jumping guiltily back to the man’s face like he wanted to make sure he hadn't been caught. He had. 

“Are you still testing me for suitability as a mate?” The humor was slow to develop in Erwin’s face, sluggish like the rest of him was sluggish. He felt like he was moving through molasses. “Do I pass?”

Missing the humor entirely, Levi glanced back down incredulously, like he couldn't comprehend the need for such a question. Instead of answering, he noted, “You don't have any scars. Not anywhere.”

“I do,” Erwin assured him. “You only have to look closely to see them.”

Levi’s lips thinned, but Erwin wasn't sure what it was he said. He just saw six or seven half-melted mouths turning down at the corners. 

“I like you better when you're just one face,” the detective sighed. “You're so much more sensible that way.”

“I’m more sensible than you are no matter how many faces I have,” the drake pointed out, sliding beneath Erwin's arm and gripping him firmly around the waist so that they could walk. 

Erwin took the steps almost on all fours, leaning forward so he was less likely to fall down the stairs. That was the last thing either of them needed to happen, but at least 911 was already outside on the front lawn if they needed to make use of their services. The paramedics were probably going to load the corpses into the back of their ambulance when the police were through with them. That was a sobering thought. Erwin wondered how many he had contributed. One for sure. Maybe the man he'd shot in the abdomen. The ambulance wasn't rushing off, unless it had left its sirens off until it hit the street. 

He’d have heard it from the street. Unless he'd missed it go. 

“No,” Levi said when Erwin turned immediately for the guest bedroom. “We're cleaning up first.”

There wasn't a good way to protest against that when the one issuing the command was Levi. Erwin wasn't sure that he  _ wanted  _ to protest. He felt terrible, disgusting, and only part of that was the head wound. He was genuinely filthy, caked in dirt and sweat and blood. Levi was worse. He let the drake prop him on the lid of the toilet while the running water warmed and he leaned back into the chilly tank to wait. Levi climbed in first, scrubbing the dirt and blood from his hair and body with rough, unindulgent efficiency. For Levi, it was a speed record, even though Erwin saw him wash his hair more than once. He watched Levi without shame because he could barely see him, only his broader movements. Levi hadn't turned the lights on, just left the door open so it could stream in from the bedroom. It took Erwin a long time to realize that it was because the light would hurt his head. 

That thought warmed him more effectively than the billows of steam coming off of Levi’s bath water. 

“Hold your hand over the bandage and keep your head dry for now,” Levi instructed as he helped Erwin into the shower stall. He clearly wasn't sure that Erwin remembered he had a bandage to be mindful of and he kind of hadn't. The detective forgot again promptly, holding onto Levi and the soap dish under their stream of hot water. His head bent forward, though he forgot why. Levi's capable hands were on him, sliding frictionlessly over his soap-slicked skin. 

“You're such a gentleman,” Erwin felt he should know. And he was. Levi's touch was thorough, but impersonal, ensuring that the shower remain what it was intended to be. Erwin was cleaned, inch by inch, and Levi never gave any indication that he was thinking thoughts that were any less clean. Even his body, naked as it was, gave nothing away. The overall effect was something like a massage--comforting without sensuality. Erwin was able to give himself over to the sensation, relaxing by inches under Levi’s careful hands. His head lolled sideways to rest against the shower wall, too much of his weight resting on that valiant little soap dish. 

Levi was careful with the shampoo. Erwin’s bandage was so close to his hairline that it came away a little damp in the end, but not ruined--a remarkable feat considering the number of times his hair got washed. 

“There's blood on your face.”

Erwin was sure there was. The paramedics had been concerned with cleaning his injury and bandaging it, but the rest of his face was on its own. He could feel the tight, itchy places where blood had been sheeting down his cheek before it started to clot and dry. He never saw the injury, but he didn't have to see it to know that it had bled outrageously for such a tiny nick. 

Levi reached up with his hands, hesitating. Erwin tried to remember if the drake had ever touched his face before and he came up short, his memory supplying nothing. It was intimate, touching someone that way--a whole new kind of tension stretching between them as Levi cupped his small hands around Erwin’s cheeks, wary like he wasn't sure it was an alright thing to be doing. The drake felt it too, then--the vast, incomprehensible difference between sliding soapy palms over the swell of an ass and grasping a person’s face. An ass seemed so much less personal in that moment.

Heat and steam had returned some moisture to the blood, allowing it to lift from Erwin's skin with less force than he was expecting. Levi still had to apply his fingernails a couple of times, carefully working with the sharp edges to avoid cutting the detective in his efforts to clean him up. There were a couple more rounds of soap. Levi’s thumbs moved gently over Erwin’s stinging cheek, which had been scraped a little tender just beside his eye where the skin was thin. He closed his eyes, but Levi kept the soap from them, always so remarkably gentle. 

“I should file these down,” the drake decided, reaching to lift Erwin's hand so he could compare their nails side by side. “They don't have any place here.”

“After the race,” Erwin reminded him. “They may have a place out there.”

Levi stilled. 

The detective squinted down at his face, ignoring the way it pulled the skin around his injury because he thought it helped clear the drake's blurry features. “What is it?”

“You're still talking about the race like we’re going to be entering. Even now.”

“You're still talking about it like we aren't.”

“You’ll barely be healed,” Levi insisted. “There's no time to prepare and you should still be in bed on the day the race is due to start. You heard the paramedic.”

“I’ll be fine by then.” Erwin could be stubborn too. Levi's hands fell from his face, the soap gone. 

“You're going to kill yourself,” the drake said harshly. “I won't let you do that for me. You barely know me.”

“I don't think that's true,” Erwin argued calmly. “I haven't known you long, but I think I know you well.”

“You don't. It's not  _ enough.” _

“Would you do it for me?”

“No!” Levi snapped, though his eyes betrayed the lie, furious with the heat of his denial. Something had broken loose in him and it was raw and blistering--something he’d given a fertile place to root and enough time in the dark to grow large. “You wouldn't either if you  _ knew me _ like you say,” he hissed, his grip tightening on Erwin where he had moved to hold him upright under the shower head. “I'm not anything. All I've ever lived for is to kill my own kind so I can keep living in my own shit for one more day. I'm a monster if I'm anything at all. What part of that is worth your life?”

The heat had become suffocating. Steam that had been relaxing just moments before threatened to slither into Erwin’s nose and choke him. “Are you trying to convince me?” the man asked. “Or do you really believe half of that nonsense?”

“It’s the way things are.”

“I've seen what you're describing,” Erwin said, reaching a shaky hand past Levi to turn off the cooling water. It took more than one try and a little feeling around, but he got it, nearly falling into the drake and flattening him in the process. “It was true for the dragons you were there with. They were gone and we could all see that. When we walked them out to the cars to bring them to the precinct, we didn't have to sedate them. They just did what we said, came where we led. They didn't even look around them when we took them outside. They didn't show any relief at the fresh air. When we put them down, it felt like murder to me, but it also felt like we were granting them peace. That isn't you. You are something.”

“I'm not.”

“You are. You have a personality and opinions of your own. You have things you like and things you don't like. You experience emotions. Look, you're even courting someone. That feels pretty  _ something  _ to me.”

Levi shook his head, but he'd started to shiver. They both had. The drake repositioned them carefully, stepping over the rim of the tub himself and then standing still and allowing Erwin to lean into him as he followed. He still had most of the detective’s weight. Erwin’s knees were not wanting to stay straight, his muscles trying to give out and his balance wanting to shift. It was worse when he moved. It was too much. 

He had to stop on the bath mat just to close his eyes and breathe away the nausea, so he didn't notice Levi drying him off. “I'm sorry,” the drake said. “We can talk about this later. You need to rest.” He reached up and touched the bandage lightly, trying to decide if it needed to be changed and frowning, but finding it adequately dry. 

He put Erwin back in his own bed, pushing the enormous stack of nesting materials aside for him. Part of it was ease of access, surely. Erwin’s bed was easiest to get to, making it the obvious choice for the convenience-minded. But he wasn't sure that was everything. He strongly suspected, based on what he knew of dragons so far and Levi’s previous behavior throughout the past few hours, that this was something protective. Tucking Erwin into his own nest did not seem like a casual decision on Levi's part. He fussed, pulling sheets up around the detective in some approximation of a nest, though it was clear that he was holding himself in check, trying to tuck Erwin in the way he'd seen humans do rather than drown him in blankets and pillows. 

“Stay,” the detective murmured. He moved closer to the center of the bed, indicating clearly where he wanted the hesitating drake. “We don't have to touch,” he promised. His head throbbed in time with his heartbeat. 

That seemed to satisfy Levi. He pulled the covers back and slid beneath them, rolling onto his side so they faced each other. There wasn't much distance between them--the barest couple of inches--but they did not touch, as agreed. 

“Nobody cares about things that are nothing,” Erwin said after a while, quiet because of their proximity. “If it's true that you're like those other dragons, then you're empty. There's nothing in you to care about. There's nothing  _ worth  _ caring about. Is that what you mean?”

“Erwin--”

“Answer, please.”

Levi sighed, the faintest ghost of breath against Erwin’s expectant face. “That's what I mean.”

“I care about you.” He said it with the finality of an argument closed. “What now?”

“Now,” Levi pronounced, shifting on the pillow so that their foreheads just barely touched. “You put this argument somewhere you won't forget about it and you go to sleep.”

Erwin snorted. “You’re a bossy nurse with a terrible bedside manner. Look at how much  _ something _ you have.” 

“You're relentless.”

“You're wrong.” 

They stared at each other in the dark. 

“Go to sleep, Erwin,” the drake said finally. And Erwin did. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I was working on a merman AU but I'm having trouble with the timeline and last night I had this insane dream about a rage virus outbreak in an underground colony and there were frightened schoolchildren and soldiers and political intrigue and I woke up and realized that I essentially had an entire fic idea. The timeline isn't finished yet, but I have a beginning and an end and most of the middle. I'm hoping to post the first chapter sometime this weekend and it may not be updated as often as WT because this one is my first priority, but if you're into that sort of thing, be on the lookout for the new thing in the next handful of days. =D


	24. You & I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erwin and Levi come to an understanding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My computer is dying gotta hurry here have the thing shoves it at you.

Time passed without mercy. The first day was lost, and then the second, unrecoverable and impossible to make up. On the third day, Erwin began to rally, but it was feeble. He had a touch of Levi’s stubborn determination and was able to force his way forward against his body’s protests, against Levi’s protests, but he was groggy and in pain and his attempts didn’t get him far. In the beginning it was the simple act of staying awake--every ounce of Erwin’s determination applied towards that goal. It was important to make progress towards the Idrarod, so he spoke. Sitting up in the bed that he’d casually repossessed, Erwin conferred with his friends for hours, taking notes in a small journal and ignoring Levi’s disapproval with rapidly developing ease. 

Erwin had been educated thoroughly and bossily on the concept of  _ cognitive rest,  _ a term that Levi had undoubtedly picked up from that goddamned paramedic. If Levi said the words  _ cognitive rest  _ to him one more time he would track the EMT down and find some way to arrest him for assaulting a police officer. His body was already going to atrophy. Where was the sense in letting his mind suffer the same fate?

And in any case, their race would begin Monday, December 1st.  

The attack had taken place on Sunday the previous week and it was Wednesday before Erwin could carry on a useful conversation. “Maybe your brain did swell,” Levi had snapped, refusing to bring Erwin’s phone charger from the guest room until he tried to get up and do it himself. “I’m going to hide this while you’re sleeping.”

But Erwin was careful to hide it first, slipping the phone and the cord and the wall adapter casually between the mattress and the box springs with the stray, grateful thought that Levi was not familiar enough with humanity to know that mattresses were a standard go-to for contraband concealment. Levi hadn’t been happy about that, either, but Erwin had to  _ do _ something to counter the relentless, creeping feeling of running out of time. 

Slowly, over cold-weather camping tips and wilderness first aid lessons taught by Mike from the foot of his bed, the detective’s condition improved. He ran his phone battery down, he charged it up, he ran it down. And still, he worried. He ventured farther and farther from the bed, shaky at first but steadying by the hour, by the day. One morning, he got up long enough to make them breakfast. It wasn’t happening quickly enough. 

Despite the silent doubts that Erwin could see turning in Levi’s head, the drake never spoke up about what they were doing. Levi’s thoughts circled like large fish in a small bowl--cramped, but trapped--and he dodged Erwin’s opening remarks without acknowledging the conversation they hadn't had. He didn’t mention the race again. Not once. He consented to their preparatory stroking, curling agreeably in Erwin’s bed with the bony arch of his back pressed to the outside of the man’s thigh, his nose in a bottle of Nanaba or Moblit-scented cotton balls as Erwin ran his thumb up and down his nape. He melted into something relaxed and pliant, often falling asleep with his fingers loosening around the glass jars that Mike and Hanji brought for them, his nose still poked inside. There was no way to know if any of it could be called progress. Face to face meetings were impossible in Erwin’s state, though they all tried to overcome it with the sheer number of bottles they offered Levi. It wasn’t long before Hanji was bringing them scents that the drake didn’t recognize--donations from their friendlier patients. But there was no way to test any of it. Erwin was in no condition to stop Levi if he lost control, and a week without dragons was a terrible, crippling blow. 

They all felt it. 

The only one who didn’t seem worried was Levi. He went through the motions serenely, agreeable when suggestions were made--trying this bottle or that one, nodding immediately when questions were asked. There would be an argument later, and a big one. It was no secret that Levi did not intend to race, that he cooperated because it forestalled the discussion he didn’t want to have. He watched the steady stream of supplies coming into the house with a sort of irritated calm, glowering at the mess that crept down from the kitchen counter to the floor by the cabinets. Erwin’s friends had diligently taken over the supply effort, promising to write down the amounts he would owe them and adding items like squirrels stashing nuts. 

The saddle arrived towards the end of the week and it was beautiful, filling the kitchen with the rich aroma of leather. It didn’t smell synthetic to Erwin, who made a mental note to ask Hanji what the production process for such an item entailed. Even Levi took a moment to run his hands over it, though he stopped immediately once he realized he’d been seen, his head turning away. 

“We’ll need to move to the preserve soon,” Erwin had told him. They were running out of time--a scant handful of days all that remained between themselves and the Idrarod. The longer they remained where they were, the more they risked being present for the DCA’s arrival. 

“What about the dragons?” Levi had asked, playing devil’s advocate for something he clearly did not expect to happen.

“Their scent doesn't make you tense anymore,” had been Erwin’s response. “Even without my hand on your neck.”

“It's just a wad of cotton balls in a bottle.”

“We haven’t been doing this for nothing. There will be other dragons on the preserve, but you will have a greater tolerance to their scents.”

Levi had not replied.

Erwin should have anticipated what was to come. He didn’t see it, didn’t consider it, but all the signs had been there. Levi had always been too quick to concede, floating down the detective’s anticipated path with the easy acceptance of someone who had other plans. 

That night, Erwin found himself awoken at some ungodly hour, his face a mere handful of inches from Levi’s. The drake had his hands on him when his eyes fluttered open, and they stilled almost guiltily where they cupped Erwin’s cheeks in his chilly palms. His thumb had been moving, tracing over one of the man’s cheekbones, but that too froze when Erwin stirred, like a television that had abruptly been paused. Levi was leaning over him, too close. 

Erwin’s first irrational thought was that the drake had been examining his bandage or changing the dressing. But the lights were still off, an utter midnight stillness hanging over the room. Without looking at the clock, Erwin knew it was late, so first aid was completely ludicrous. Levi remained bent like he had no idea what to do and he must have been holding his breath because the air surrounding them was so still they could have been trapped in acrylic.

“What are you doing?” The detective’s voice was rough with sleep. Levi’s wasn't.

“Nothing. You're dreaming. Go back to sleep.” Then the tableau was broken and Levi pulled away like he hadn’t just been leaning in close enough to determine the detective’s pore size. His expression was unreadable, leaving no way for Erwin to tell whether or not the he really hoped to be convincing.

“Is something wrong?”

“I don't know, is it? It's your dream.”

“Prove it,” Erwin murmured drowsily. “If this had been a dream, you wouldn’t have stopped once I caught you.”

Levi twitched, then went very still, thrown by the realization that Erwin had correctly guessed what his purpose was in being there. But the tense moment passed and Levi snorted softly. “Go back to sleep, Erwin.”

He started to. Erwin closed his eyes, unthinking, accustomed as he was to Nurse Levi and his bossy, but attentive care. He’d been trained over the past week to heed that voice--or at least pretend to. Something in the situation niggled at him, though, ready as he was to follow the siren song of sleep back into his dreams. It followed him, tugging at his awareness like a child asking for attention.  _ Look at this. Listen. _

There was nothing to listen to, just the silent house and Levi’s bare feet carefully descending the stairs. Carefully, like he didn't want to be heard. The thought drifted lazily through Erwin’s head, starting to settle. He was already awake and Levi knew that, but maybe he was trying for silence anyway out of politeness. Erwin stretched his tired body, rolling over. He almost looked forward to the race, the promise of a brutal challenge sounding refreshing after a week of unrelenting recuperation. Working his muscles again would be a relief. And then he realized. 

Erwin was out of bed before the thought finished forming, already fighting with the sheets for his freedom. He was down the stairs even more quickly, gripping the rail and storming down to the first floor like the hounds of hell were nipping at his heels. In the entryway, Levi turned, his eyes already guilty and his hand tensing on the front door. They had only the laundry room light to see by, left on in case someone wanted something in the middle of the night without trying to navigate the tidy minefield of Idrarod gear. Filtering first through the kitchen and blocked by a corner, the light barely made it into the hallway. It turned Levi's face into an unfamiliar assembly of shadows, something Erwin wasn't sure how to read. Behind the drake, their front windows were black with thorough, rural darkness.

“Have you decided you prefer the lawn to the toilet after all?”

Levi didn't say anything. Both of them knew exactly what the situation was.

“You’re always free to leave if that’s what you want,” Erwin continued, hovering at the end of the hall like they were back to day one when his approach would have caused Levi to bolt. “You don’t have to make an escape.”

“I don't … want to.” And he didn't. Erwin could see what it meant to Levi, standing at that door with his hand on the knob and facing the man he thought he wouldn't have to say goodbye to. It was obvious in his face what leaving would cost him, the control it had taken just to make it down to the door. He looked exactly as though he’d torn himself in half. 

Still, it wouldn't be easy to convince him to stay. Erwin could see what Levi thought he was doing. “If you don't want to leave,” he began, “then stay. Run the race with me.”

“We wouldn't survive. You're in shit shape and we don't know what we’re doing. We don't know if I can tolerate other dragons. We don't know how much I can carry. We only have a few days to figure it all out.” He was brutal in his assessment and all of it was true.

“I won't deny that it's a risk,” Erwin replied carefully, his words measured. “But I don't think our death is a guarantee. Not this way. If you leave for the border on your own, though, yours is certain.”

“If I leave,  _ you're _ certain to live. You'd be free of everything--the DCA, the courts, the crazy shit you’d have to do to keep me. You won't have to worry anymore that I'll kill someone. You didn't deserve to have me inflicted on you, but I can do this for you. I can solve all of this. Your problems would end.”

“And the problem of seeing you shot down on the local news?” Into the sharp silence that followed, Erwin added. “How about mourning you?”

“Stop it.”

“No. You're risking your life either way, whether you go or stay. You don't get a choice in that, but I do. If you don't want to run the race for your own reasons, I respect that, but if you don't want to run it because you’re worried about me, then that is unacceptable.”

Levi’s eyes narrowed. “How do you figure?”

“Because it's my decision whether or not I want to take that risk.”

“That doesn't make your decision smart.”

“I've never gone over your head,” Erwin replied firmly. “Don't go over mine. If you walk out that door and you don't truly want to leave, then you're taking my decision away from me.”

Levi did not blink. “I'm alright with that if you live.”

“If we win, we both live, and I think we can win.”

“I don't.”

Erwin sighed. It wasn't defeat, just unhappiness. “I know,” he said. “I know we aren't mated like the others will be, and I realize that's significant, but how much so? People can accomplish incredible things without liking each other at all if they can agree amongst themselves to work in tandem. Not being mated isn't going to be the primary reason why we live or die. This race doesn't depend on that. It's about how well we cooperate.”

“There's no way to be sure of that,” Levi argued. “You haven’t ever run.” He stepped back as Erwin drifted forward, stubbornly seeking to stand firm, to avoid the man’s persuasive arguments and his own treacherous need to step forward and say that he wanted a cup of tea. 

“It's an uncertainty. I'm okay with that.” They were close enough to touch before Erwin stopped and the drake hadn’t moved. He could still bolt--his hand was on the door knob like he hadn't dismissed the option, but he hadn't gone yet. “Levi, have you thought about the life that would follow the race if we won? Have you really considered it? Is that not worth--”

“No.”

“What if we’re compatible?” Erwin pressed. “What if we survive and we can both come back here and finish the courtship? I want to give that future a chance.”

“How can you weigh that against your life?” Levi asked harshly, tensing as Erwin edged deeper into his personal space.

“This  _ is _ my life,” Erwin assured him. “The one I have now, the one with you in it, is the one I want. That's the point I've been making. You can't choose for me which problems need taking away. Maybe these are the problems that I want to keep because they mean keeping you too. I can choose for myself how I want to use my life, where I want to risk it, and who I want to risk it for. You can't decide that for me.”

“My life isn't worth yours. I know you're fond of me, so you think it is, but that isn't reality. That day on the preserve, you were so natural. You knew what to do with the younglings like it was something that was just a part of you. You're whole. Your life is … beautiful.” He paused there, frustrated by the effort of expressing something that he wasn't sure how to put words to. “That look you had--that was the same way I fought, but the only thing I ever did naturally was kill. Upstairs, I couldn't kiss you. I didn't know how. Erwin, please, you can't die for something like me.” His voice had broken on the word  _ please,  _ and Erwin was done. He was done watching things break. They had too much opportunity, too many resources, to allow this. 

“Stop,” it was the detective’s turn to say. The request was mild, spoken softly, but Levi flinched like he’d been struck. He stepped back when Erwin stepped forward, producing a soft  _ thunk  _ as his back hit the door. There was no place left for him to retreat to unless he tried turning the knob from his current position, his hand still twisted awkwardly behind him where he refused to relinquish his exit. He could not avoid Erwin's grip when the man reached out to take him by the wrist, removing Levi’s hand from its precarious position. The drake’s fingers curled into a fist, his tendons flexing in Erwin's grasp, but he did not try to pull away. There wasn't anywhere for him to go anymore if he wanted to. Erwin had him. 

“You can be ugly if you insist on being ugly,” the detective insisted. “But I dissected the place where you came from and I know exactly what you did there. I know what was done to you. I’m  _ fond _ of a person I can see clearly. If that's too much for you to fathom right now, then don't fathom it. Just trust me until you can. And if you can't see your value, then trust that I do.” 

He only let go of Levi’s wrist once he had him securely around the waist, pulling him into their first real, intentional embrace. 

Erwin had never held Levi before--not for the simple sake of holding him, for wanting to be close. There had only ever been necessity for them, carrying, restraining, pulling one another upright. There hadn't been anything so deliberate, initiated for its own sake, and at first Levi squirmed, thinking he was being restrained and resisting in kind. His newly freed hands flew to the back of Erwin’s shirt, hoping to drag him backwards and force them apart. Under normal circumstances, the detective might have allowed it. He would have allowed it if Levi had continued, but Hallmark seemed to be asserting itself in the drake’s memory, reminding him that this position had another purpose beyond domination and restraint. The squirming stopped in a breathless moment of realization and Levi went very, very still. Then he took a breath, his small chest heaving against Erwin’s with more than simple exertion. “Damn it,” he hissed. “Damn you.”

The drake’s arms clenched around Erwin like he couldn't help it, fingers tightening on the back of the man’s shirt where he gripped him as fiercely as he was being gripped himself. He didn't seem to know where his head was supposed to go, his temple hovering over, but not quite touching Erwin's chest. The detective reached up and solved the problem for both of them, drawing Levi's cheek to the place it needed to be and flattening his fingers against the drake's skull as though it could really prevent him from leaving. He bent his head and Levi’s hair still smelled fresh from his evening shower, Erwin's own shampoo mixing with the dragon’s faint, individual scent. 

“It isn't selfish to stay.” When Erwin spoke, Levi shivered under the warm touch of his breath. “It’s what I want too.”

“I almost got you killed.” He was exhausted, his voice faint with failing resolve. Now, he would have to tear himself from Erwin’s arms if he wanted to go. It was the first thing he didn’t seem able to force his body into doing.

Erwin shrugged, knowing Levi would feel the motion. “I have a dangerous job. It's a job that I chose long before I met you, and it was that job that led me here. My own decisions put me in the stable that night and I accepted what I was getting into even then. I don't have any regrets.”

“Will you say that to me when you're freezing to death in the Arctic?” Levi wanted to know.

“I would, if we happened to freeze, but I don't think we will. Mike assures me that we have a very good tent and the sleeping bags are designed for temperatures at the lowest end of the range. We had to special order--”

“I know,” the drake snapped. “I was there.”

“I'm surprised you were listening.” Levi didn't answer, so Erwin went on in the unsettled silence, his hand moving up the drake’s bare spine like he meant to scrub the tension away. “I realized from the beginning that you didn't ever intend to race, but I thought you would change your mind once you saw how well-prepared and confident we all were. Instead you saw me injured. I should have crushed those doubts the minute I saw them, but instead I allowed them to root too deep.”

“This isn't  _ your _ fault.”

“No, it isn't. But I didn't respond the way I should have. I didn't realize you would leave rather than agreeing to race with me.”

“How could that surprise you?”

Erwin shook his head. “I don't know. It shouldn't. Levi, give me your word that you won't leave without talking to me first. Promise that you won't disappear.”

The drake hesitated. “I haven't said that I don't still intend to go.”

“Do you?”

The silence that followed was far too long. Levi's arms were like vices around Erwin’s hips, betraying what he truly wanted. Even subconsciously, his body was trying to make him stay. Erwin could feel the war raging inside of that tiny frame, the devastation that war was causing him. 

“The honest truth,” Erwin sighed into his hair, “is this. Maybe it's insane to think so, but over the past week, I've caught myself looking forward to the race. I did dread it in the beginning, but I don’t see it that way anymore.”

Levi's head jerked back, shaking Erwin’s hand from its place behind his ear. “Are you still trying to convince me to stay?”

“Yes, but I haven't lied.”

Levi scowled up at him, his eyes flitting over Erwin's face in search of deceit, but there was none to find.

“If it was up to me, I still wouldn't run. I wouldn't want to risk either of us without cause, but since the choice isn't ours, I've had the opportunity to consider the reason why other couples run willingly. I believe they must want to see what they can accomplish with what they have, and I found that I share that interest. I want to work towards something with you. For me, it isn't solely about that pardon we’ll get at the finish line anymore.”

“Erwin--”

“I want to.”

Levi scowled up at him for a long moment, his face mostly in shadow. But after a moment, his eyebrows rose the barest fraction of an inch, his scowl softening. “You really do.” 

Erwin raised his hands to Levi’s face, gratified when the drake did not flinch away. “I haven’t lied,” he repeated. For a moment, he just looked at Levi, noting his uncertainty over the position of Erwin's hands--noting also that the dragon made no attempt to withdraw, trusting Erwin with that uncertainty. He simply waited. It was a start. “If you can't bear to stay because you don't know how to kiss me, then I guess you had better let me teach you.”

“That isn't  _ the _ reason.” He might have continued, but Erwin's thumb moved to the drake’s bottom lip, simultaneously teasing him lightly with the idea that a mouth could occupy that same space and startling him into shutting up. Levi's small breath of surprise was followed by a long exhale, his breath hot on Erwin's hands. 

“I'm trying to flirt with you. Hush,” Erwin told him, and he did. Levi's expression assured him that the attempt had been successful. “Other things will become natural for you. Tea, showers, younglings, all of it. Everything becomes familiar with repetition. Kisses do.”

Levi didn’t quite look into Erwin’s eyes. “Will I stop feeling guilty for wanting all of that?”

“Yes,” the man could promise. “Everything is strange for you now. You don’t quite have the perspective yet to see that these are all just tiny pieces of the life that you deserve. Race with me so I have time to show you.” 

Levi shook his head, but it was slow--not exactly a refusal. His brow was pinched together in a frown.

“I’m not going to kiss you goodbye,” Erwin warned him. “Be sure you’re ready for what follows.”

“What follows?” Levi’s attention had fallen to the man’s lips, curious like he was imagining what they might feel like covering his own.

“Generally more kissing. The Idrarod. Then, kissing in the snow.”

Levi made a face, but it wasn't rejection, only a deeply seated hatred of the cold. “Kiss me then. But if the tent is shit, I'm leaving you in the woods.”

Erwin snorted. “I also ordered a heater. You'll have to light it.” But he moved before Levi could ask him to explain that, gently tipping the dragon’s head to the necessary angle and bending to press their lips together. 

The drake jumped, his mouth already open in a reply that Erwin would never hear. Levi did not move other than to tighten his grip on the man, his lips chilly and unmoving beneath Erwin's. Far from being discouraged, the detective courted Levi's mouth unhurriedly, drawing him out with the strategic application of lips and tongue. He was patient. He knew how to build upon each action that came before and finally, Levi moved. He'd been taking notes, evidently, because he repeated Erwin's actions back to him, swiping his tongue along the detective’s lower lip, pulling him carefully between his teeth. Jesus, his mouth was hot. On the inside, he was hotter than any human could be, searing Erwin where they touched. It was a sharp, startling contrast to the chill of his lips and the surprise shook a quick inhale from Erwin's chest. 

Levi drew back quickly, his teeth releasing Erwin with jarring speed. “Was that wrong?”

“No, not at all.” And that was true. It hadn't been a perfect kiss--too cautious and inexperienced to be considered so--but it was perfect momentum, perfect progress. Erwin found himself thoroughly charmed, his lips back on Levi in search of that intense heat. That time, the drake's head turned on its own, angling quickly as Erwin leaned in. He met the man with eager interest, like he'd been pleasantly surprised by his willingness to try again. Erwin hadn't fully introduced him to all the best uses for a tongue, but Levi's lips parted as though he had, unknowingly inviting him in. The detective took him up on it. 

It was Levi's turn at surprise, starting in Erwin’s arms as the detective's tongue teased politely at the liquid fire behind his lips. Levi made a sound like he wanted to speak, but he changed his mind, letting go of Erwin’s shirt and finding the back of his head quickly enough to prevent the man from pulling away to listen. Levi's fingers curled, tugging slightly--unintentionally--and eliciting a small hum of approval from Erwin. 

Levi paused, knowing the sound for what it was and wanting to know that caused it. 

“You can pull,” the detective took his tongue back to say. His lips moved against Levi’s when he spoke and he felt the small shiver it produced. 

“Your hair?”

“Mm.”

“Why? What does it feel like?” Levi asked. “Show me.”

Erwin smiled against the drake's lips, pressing forward to pick up where he left off. As he caught the tip of Levi's tongue in his teeth and drew the muscle into his own mouth, he pushed his fingers into the drake's hair, his fingernails grazing along his scalp, and curled them into a loose fist, pulling experimentally. 

The sound Levi made was incredible. 

Part surprise, part arousal, the drake sank into Erwin, his body yielding the last of its nervous tension and arching wholeheartedly into the detective. They would be ending it soon, Erwin knew. The hot stripe of pressure along his thigh indicated that they were reaching a tipping point, beyond which it was too early for them to go. Levi moved with inarticulate interest through Erwin's mouth, exploring the new territory he'd been welcomed into as his hips rolled briefly into Erwin once, then again. The detective could feel the muscles flex in Levi’s lower back when he moved, but it took the drake a moment to realize that they were approaching the invisible line he'd drawn for them, then he was pulling away quickly like he'd remembered that something was burning in the oven. 

“Erwin--”

“It's alright.” The detective's hands slid to Levi's hips and parted their bodies with only the faintest tinge of reluctance. The drake was fully erect. Erwin could see that even in the dark, how he was so hard that he almost rested against his own abdomen. “It would be considered mating, wouldn't it?”

“I don't know yet if I want that.”

“Neither do I. It's alright,” he repeated. “We can go back to bed.”

But Levi was shaking his head. “I don't want to. It would feel too much like wasting time. What else is left to do?”

It took Erwin a moment to realize that Levi had just spoken of the race as though he'd invested himself in running. He carefully didn't mention it, not wanting to draw attention. “Hanji is probably still up. We could see if they want to bring Moblit for a visit.”

Levi paused, but he'd committed. Sighing, he turned his head to one side and let it drop to Erwin's chest like he had never in his life been hesitant to do so, like he knew exactly how he fit there even with his hips kept at a distance. “Fine. We’ll introduce me to a dragon.”

“My phone is upstairs.”

They were both slow to move, though. 

“I understand why people do that in all the movies,” Levi pronounced slowly, referring to the kiss. “Though it didn't look the same.”

“They have to keep it G-rated for Hallmark,” Erwin explained. “Moaning and hair pulling is a little beyond that rating.”

“Hmm.”

“You're catching onto it quickly,” Erwin assured him, his hand running lightly over Levi's hair. It was nothing like the way he'd touched it just a moment ago. Idly, he combed his fingers through the strands he’d put awry, setting Levi to rights. “I keep hoping you'll realize that what I value so highly in you did not come from the stable. Some of it does. I admire the things you've overcome, but you aren't the sum of your tragedies. I think someday you will see that, so we both have plenty of reasons to make it to the other side of the Idrarod. You don't have to reply to any of this. I just wanted you to know.”

Levi nodded. Erwin felt the movement more than he saw it. “I’m not--” but he stopped himself, making an effort at the trust Erwin had asked for. “Thank you.”

Erwin bent to plant a kiss into the top of the drake's head, admiring the freedom with which he did so. “You're always welcome. Let's go call Hanji and find you some pants.”

“Fuck pants.” But when Erwin pulled away, Levi followed. 


	25. Fine Lines

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Levi's control is tested against Moblit's presence. Erwin's control is tested against Hanji's exceptional ability to put their foot in their mouth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *********** IMPORTANT, PLEASE READ ***********
> 
> I've added a couple of tags for dragon breeding. As a fighting champion, Levi's captors would have wanted to continue and strengthen his genetic line, so they bred him the same way people breed their prize-winning show dogs. My initial intention was to keep this as vague as possible, but it comes up in this chapter as a byproduct of an idea that Hanji suggests. I did not plan and tag for non-con early on, so I've kept it clinical, both the breeding itself and Levi's feelings towards it. One of the new tags indicates for future readers that the whole breeding thing is iffy in that area. Levi was never raped in the straightforward sense, but he also didn't agree to have his sperm taken. The details PROBABLY won't surpass anything that you've already imagined, but I didn't want to blindside anyone with it.

IHOP.  _ That _ was Hanji's suggestion. 

They would all meet up in the parking lot to test the waters before moving on, giving Levi a chance to lose control for a couple of seconds without endangering anyone's pancakes. “It's neutral territory,” was how the doctor had explained their insane idea. “Levi won't feel as though his space is being invaded and there will be more incentive to keep his cool if he does feel it slip. That, and I crave hash browns when I pull all-nighters.”

Erwin had tilted his phone down to ask Levi, “My house is your territory?” and the question had earned him an adorably wrinkled brow. 

“It's … getting there,” had been Levi’s guarded reply. Erwin wasn't sure why such a small thing could produce that kind of uncertainty. He'd explicitly stated more than once that the drake was welcome to consider Erwin's home his own, even if they didn't end up mating. Levi had somewhere to go either way--that was what Erwin had always wanted him to understand. If their relationship took a turn for the platonic, Erwin would not ask him to leave--wouldn't really want him to. Only, Levi hadn't mentioned one way or the other what his plans were on the matter. 

When he'd met the drake’s eyes and firmly said, “Good,” Levi had gone unexpectedly rosy and Erwin didn't think there was anything platonic about that. 

So they put on their clothes and Erwin drove them into the little suburb outside of the city that had always been a good halfway point for rendezvous with Hanji and/or Moblit. 

“This is one of the more idiotic things we’ve done since the Idrarod came up,” Levi let Erwin know. His legs were drawn into the heated seat, which he occupied along with a bulky comforter that made him look like a pile of cheerful Hello Kitty fabric with a frowning head. 

“I think Hanji was right. It would be more dangerous for Moblit to try and get close to our house.” Erwin was careful to say  _ our.  _ “And you would be on edge at their condo. If anything happened there, we’d have to carry you down twenty six floors.”

“Yeah, I get it,” Levi grumbled. “Shit Glasses is probably right. But a parking lot.”

“We should have chosen a park or something,” Erwin agreed. “Though police patrol those and I didn't want to draw too much attention, either. If they saw four adults meeting there at this time of night, they'd certainly be curious.”

Levi heaved a sigh. “We should have waited until we could meet on the preserve. I'm going to set the waffle place on fire.”

“Pancakes.”

“Whatever. It won't be either once I burn it down.”

“You won't leave your human form,” Erwin assured him. “I caught you before. I know what it feels like now when you're about to shift.”

“Hm.”

The car fell silent, but there was no tension. It wasn't like the day they drove to the preserve, when Levi was so keyed up that he shook with the adrenaline. Beside him in the passenger seat, the drake was more or less relaxed, turned towards Erwin in a way that definitely undermined the seat belt’s efficacy but gave him a comfortable view of the detective's profile, which he’d been studying with drowsy interest since they’d gotten into the car. 

“It wasn't as disgusting as I expected it to be,” Levi decided finally. He’d been thinking, finishing a thought aloud without any introduction, so it took Erwin a moment to understand. 

“You expected kissing to be disgusting?” 

“It  _ looks _ disgusting. It should be disgusting, but I'm still waiting for the car to stop so I can do it again. Why?”

Erwin lifted his shoulders. “Hanji could explain the brain chemistry to you. If you want something less scientific, I think it's just the closeness. It means more than simply touching.”

“I don't know about that,” Levi countered. “I'd think it would depend on what you were touching.”

Erwin's head turned so quickly that he managed to catch the smirk that Levi was lowering his chin to hide behind a pink-covered knee. Still, his eyes glinted. 

“You've been paying far too close attention to Nanaba.”

“Moblit,” Levi corrected, leaving Erwin feeling vaguely disoriented. It really was the quiet ones. He knew that both of the dragons had been talking to Levi by telephone, but as far as he knew, the drake still wasn't saying much, if anything, himself. How did his friend’s monologues even turn in that direction without any prompting?  _ Oh by the way, Hanji and I have been experimenting with clothes pins let me explain. _

On second thought, that one was more Mike and Nanaba. Probably. Erwin wasn't sure anymore. He  _ was  _ sure that he didn't want anyone telling Levi about those things until he had the experience to realize that clothes pins were not mandatory accoutrements to sex. Or leather body suits. Or butt plugs. Whatever it was his rabble of perverts got up to. 

_ Until.  _

Erwin tried not to let that thought embed itself too deeply in his psyche. It was just a word, carelessly thought. It did not indicate his own interest--only that he was probably poised somewhere between wanting Levi and  _ wanting  _ him. 

He could see from clear across the parking lot that Moblit had on his reading glasses. They were utterly pointless unless Moblit was actually reading and he did not normally walk around with them hanging off his nose that way. Erwin saw Hanji’s hand in it immediately, knowing the subtle staging for what it was. The other drake looked devastatingly fragile. 

Hanji waved to them as Erwin moved to park, but the couple did not approach the SUV. Their arms were linked like they’d been promenading around an old Victorian town, but Moblit huddled a little too closely to Hanji's side to be mistaken for anything but cold. 

“I’ll come to you,” Erwin said quickly, earning a clipped nod from Levi. Hanji and Moblit knew enough to stay where they were and let the other pair sort themselves out on their own. They probably weren't expecting Levi to slither into the small open space between Erwin and the running board and pull the man down into a heated kiss. Erwin wasn't entirely expecting it either, despite Levi's earlier comment about waiting for the car to stop. He hadn't been kidding, then. The detective took Levi's weight with less than a half-step back, the back of his jeans making unfortunate contact with their neighbor’s driver-side door. The adorable little sedan did not protest, but it's owner might if they noticed the two borrowing it. Hoping they were not the sort of people who sat within view of their vehicle, Erwin's arms came up around Levi as his mouth responded, deepening the kiss that the other had initiated. For the most part, he tried to keep things tame enough for Hallmark, deftly avoiding Levi's attempts at public debauchery and easing them carefully off of the adorable sedan. 

“You--” Erwin began, but he was interrupted. Levi simply rose onto his tiptoes as Erwin drew back, chasing him with his lips. His small body shook with cold that he didn't seem to notice, pressed flush against Erwin's chest and absorbing the little heat that he offered. Erwin indulged him for a few moments more before he tried to pull away again. “You're going to get frostbite.”

“I wasn't finished.”

“Then you have something to look forward to after …” Erwin hesitated, uncertain over what meal it was they were about to eat. “Breakfast,” he decided. Levi's sigh was a warm puff of frustration across the man’s throat. It dissipated quickly in the chilly air, but the drake agreed to put a little respectable distance between them, leaving Erwin to shiver as his front was suddenly exposed to the wind. He took Levi around the shoulders and pulled him back into his side and it was only a little bit precautionary because he doubted Levi was thinking much about Moblit right then. The drake wiggled himself beneath the edge of Erwin’s jacket and nearly tripped him in his urgent quest for warmth, feeling the cold now that he didn't have other things to occupy him.  

Hanji and Moblit were grinning at them as they approached, albeit a little nervously on Moblit’s part.  _ “Well,” _ the doctor began. 

“Hush.”

“Looks like you showed that other car a couple things it hadn’t seen before.”

“How are you feeling, Levi?” Erwin asked pointedly, though he already knew the situation was stable. For the moment, the body alongside his was tense, but calm. He looked at Moblit like he hadn't ever seen anything like him before, surprised and curious. 

“I want to kill him,” Levi determined. “But I don't need to.” And he seemed surprised by the fact. 

“You two are standing a lot closer together than you and Nanaba were at the preserve,” Hanji observed. “Can you smell him? You look more relaxed as well--in control even.” Erwin could see them taking hundreds of mental notes. They would probably write at length at a later date about the thoughtful little crease between Levi’s eyebrows. “I must say I wasn't expecting this level of success with the reconditioning. I was expecting it to work, of course, but I wasn't expecting quite this  _ rate.” _

“You weren't?” Moblit asked sharply. 

“Erwin has stopped Levi before. I wasn't at all concerned for your welfare or else I would not have volunteered you. But I did bring a can of bear repellent just in case.” They did not say whether or not the can was still on their person, but judging by the fact that they hadn't had an opportunity to toss it back into their car, Erwin thought it probably was. Hanji didn't, he noted, make any move to rid themselves of it now, either. 

“Ah … Nice to meet you, Levi,” Moblit tried, though for him it probably wasn't. Not in person and not right then, anyway. Erwin would have to tell the other drake later how much he appreciated what he was doing. Levi's eyes scanned the anxious face and he, too, was wary, but he was probably more concerned about what he himself would do. He offered a short nod in reply. 

It was something Erwin couldn't even imagine happening two weeks ago. 

Hanji brightened immediately, squeezing Moblit's arm in their excitement. “What an excellent development!” They cried. “We can all eat together!”

Erwin glanced at Levi, wanting to be sure. It all seemed too easy--not that he had any complaints. It only put him a little on edge, like he was waiting for the other shoe to drop. “You really feel okay?” He murmured, letting Hanji drag Moblit ahead of them to get a table. 

The drake looked up at him, blinking and bewildered. “I really do. His scent is everywhere and with you right here too it's just like having my nose in those stupid jars. But don't go far,” he added quickly. His scowl was thoughtful rather than troubled, even as he added, “I don't trust what I'll do to him if it stops feeling like that.”

“I'm not going anywhere,” Erwin promised him, deciding right then not to have any coffee with his meal. He didn't relish the thought of taking Levi into that dingy one-room bathroom with him. Eager to get out of the cold, he started in the direction that his friends were headed, following the warm interior glow to the promise of food. 

Erwin and Levi had to separate at the doors so they could enter without looking like fools, and on the inside Levi stopped just shy of the entrance, looking around him mistrustfully like someone would leap forward at any time and demand that he return to the stable where he belonged. Or to the DCA laboratory. There were too many people who wanted Levi and too many people who had arguable claims on him. As the drake stood there scowling at the whole room like he wanted it to stay away from him, his nose red and his cheeks flushed, Erwin felt a fierce swell of protectiveness--an almost irrational need to bustle Levi back out to the car before he was spotted and taken. For a single, disorienting moment it hit Erwin how outlandish it was that a whole, entire person could be taken legally, destroyed legally or used legally for whatever purpose the DCA dreamed up with no chance for appeal. Levi was nothing unless he was owned. The hostess motioned for them to follow her and Erwin reached out to snag the drake’s hand through his hoodie sleeve, thinking of the insane bout of loopholes they were about to try sliding through when none of it should have been necessary. 

“I brought something for you,” Hanji told them as they were seated. They didn't even wait for the waitress to leave before they were reaching into their coat and pulling a book from inside, where they must have had it tucked under their arm. It was Levi they attempted to offer it to, and only then did Erwin realize that the drake's hands were still tangled stubbornly in his overlarge sweatshirt. He hadn't noticed because they were long and it was cold out. Erwin would have hidden his chilly fingers in his own sleeves had they been long enough. But even the hand that Erwin held in his own was wrapped up and hidden. 

They all let an awkward stillness pass before Erwin reached out and took the book on Levi’s behalf. “Thank you, Hanji.”

“Sure,” they blinked, startled. They must have thought they were past Levi’s discomfort with his carryovers as well. The look they had was speculative. 

Hanji couldn't have been the problem. They'd seen Levi fully unclothed that day at the Outfitter’s, his carryover traits on full display. He hadn't been comfortable then, but he hadn't tried to keep himself covered. Erwin glanced across the table at Moblit, whose pretty hands curled anxiously around the menu he was given, his fingers long and tapered like a musician’s. There wasn't a spot of silver on him, his natural form perfectly encapsulated by the human body that surrounded him. Moblit was perfectly ornamental, everything about him representing the epitome of what a dragon should look like in their human shape. Hanji was looking at him too, subtly, with their head bowed as though they were looking at the menu they'd just been handed as well. But they were frowning just a little too hard to be thinking about pancakes. 

Erwin reached out and intercepted Levi’s menu before things could get worse, but he didn't immediately look at his own. The book Hanji had tried to give the drake was called  _ Wild-Type Phenotypes: A History In Photographs.  _ Noticing the title, he nudged Levi with the corner. 

“Orange juice, please,” he heard himself tell the waitress. “Water for Levi.” He didn't pay attention to what Hanji and Moblit asked for. 

The waitress seemed to have decided that Erwin had taken Levi by the hand for the sake of guiding his shy dragon into an unfamiliar situation. She obviously found it hopelessly adorable, reading it as a platonic gesture and flirting politely without any indication that she'd ever wondered. Maybe she hadn't. 

“Is Levi yours?” She asked. “He's precious.”

“Thank you,” Erwin answered, deftly avoiding the question by pretending that he had missed it. 

“How old is he? Does he talk?”

“He's around my age, and he speaks to me, but mostly when we're alone.”

The waitress made a soft cooing sound. “How  _ cute.  _ I’ve wanted a dragon forever, but--” she gestured around herself, indicating either that she couldn't afford one or she didn't have the time--maybe both. “Well, I’ll be back in a few to get your orders. Take your time!”

“I didn't want anyone spitting in our food,” Hanji sniffed, leaning back in the booth with a soft  _ thunk.  _ “So I kept my thoughts to myself.”

“We all appreciate it,” Moblit sighed. 

Levi didn't seem to be paying attention anyway. He was too busy looking at the cover of the book, though he didn't reach for it. The cover featured a glossy, high resolution photograph of a female dragon’s hands, folded in an elegant pose and rosy with a beautifully gradated carryover. Her nails had been left alone except for a light filing to take the unwieldy points off. 

“I thought it might interest you both,” Hanji explained. “Levi is very nearly a perfect wild-type. Even in this book I don't see a better example. I wanted you to understand how important this was.”

“Maybe we should order before you get started,” Moblit suggested, but it was too late. 

“Before humans intervened, your species was going extinct, did you know that?”

Levi shook his head slowly, glancing at Erwin like he wasn't sure if he should be encouraging the doctor, but his curiosity was greater than his concern for their ability to order. Across the table, Moblit sighed again, but he did not interrupt. 

“With our technical advancements in assisted reproduction, humans were in an excellent position to assist, and we did. It started the way most breeding programs do. Conservationists would breed dragons and release them into their own custody. That was the earliest purpose of the DCA. Conservation and population management. Then, things shifted into the private sector and everything started moving towards the situation you see today. Breeders are no longer interested in conservation, but in business, as you've seen. Their breeding practices have created dragons with very few carryover traits, but in the process they have also weakened the bloodlines and made it even more difficult for dragons to breed naturally. What your fighting ring unwittingly did, Levi, was reverse-engineer all that hard work.” They grinned, albeit a little sardonically. “By breeding the strongest of you, they were also  _ reproducing  _ wild-type dragons. The traits go hand in hand. Strength is wild-type, and they undoubtedly picked up on this correlation themselves. You weren't an accident of careless breeding. I can assure you that the way you look is a very deliberate side effect of the strength that you carry in your genes.”

“At which point we arrive at Hanji’s ulterior motive behind giving you the book,” Moblit advised them, slipping in with the quick aside when the doctor paused for air. 

Hanji rolled their eyes. “There is no  _ ulterior  _ motive. My gift only happens to coincide with a proposition.”

“It's part of the introductory material for your idea.”

“Stop ruining my presentation. My point has been that your genes are valuable. If you take nothing else from this conversation, take that, because it's a scientific fact. If your bloodline--and the lines of the others taken from the stable--were to continue, conservationists could revitalize a  _ genuine  _ effort at stabilizing dragon populations the way they  _ should  _ be stabilized. Eventually, you may even be able to breed on your own. You yourself could be fertile. At the very least, you're nearly there.”

Levi glanced down at his lap in alarm. 

“Your wild-type carryovers are not a flaw. The book is primarily to help you understand that by comparison to potential inside of you, those fussy breeding standards are less than nothing.” They shot a haughty look at Moblit, daring him to comment. 

Levi leaned back slowly in his seat, his expression blank with shock. Erwin understood the feeling. He hadn't quite realized himself what Levi's genetics could mean for the rest of his species, though perhaps he should have. He was ashamed to find that he hadn't been thinking along those lines at all. 

“We can all be useful, then,” the drake pronounced carefully. “For something apart from fighting.”

_ “Yes,”  _ Hanji insisted, gripping the edge of the table and leaning across it with the kind of white knuckled excitement they reserved only for the most important of scientific pursuits. “If we worked out something of our own, we could give dragons their autonomy back. Not here--” they added as Erwin opened his mouth to ask them just that.  _ How  _ they were supposed to start a breeding program using unregistered and illegitimate bloodlines, Erwin was interested to know, but Hanji was waving him off, continuing. “I've been in contact with a group in Canada that is already working on a program of their own. One of them is a friend from graduate school, so we’ve kept in touch.  _ Anyway,  _ their government has sanctioned a breeding program, but they don't have access to bloodlines with pronounced wild-type carryovers. Bloodlines like Levi's.”

“Your proposal then,” Erwin prompted. “You want to breed Levi as well?”

“Indirectly,” the doctor assured him. “The whole process would be very polite. His wild-type traits are the strongest I've seen and he would be an invaluable addition to the gene pool we’re putting together. It's less dramatic than you're picturing. We would simply take periodic donations and I would drive them over the border and hand-deliver them to my friend on the other side. It’s no different than human sperm donation. Levi could even gather the samples himself, though if he needed assistance you would merely have to hold--” 

Moblit elbowed them sharply. 

“--the  _ collection equipment. _ Moblit please, I am trying to save your entire species from human subjugation.”

“Is it legal to carry dragon sperm across the Canadian border?” Erwin asked. 

Hanji made a face, raising a hand and rocking it from side to side to indicate  _ so-so.  _ “I figure if people can smuggle entire human beings across the border, I can manage one cooler of sperm.”

Moblit muttered something under his breath, his cheeks going slightly pink. It probably had something to do with the appearance of the waitress, who was very clearly trying to pretend that she hadn't just walked in on a conversation involving illegal dragon sperm trafficking. “Are you ready to order?” She tried bravely, setting glasses in front of everyone with impressive professionalism. Hanji and Moblit each had an apple juice and a water as it would turn out. Noting Levi's wrinkled nose when Erwin's bright orange glass was placed in front of him, the detective slid it into Levi's section of table, the offer clear. 

“We’ll need just a few more moments,” Hanji told the young woman, ignoring Moblit's tired stare and the waitress’s inattention. She was watching Levi's cautious attempt at the orange juice with a ridiculous amount of fascination, and she jumped as she realized she’d been addressed. 

“Sorry! Yes, of course.”

“And another one of those.” Judging by the rapturous look on Levi's face, he would be keeping the juice. 

“Coming right up!”

Levi's hands were still covered when he carefully returned his pilfered glass to the table. Erwin wasn't about to push him to show any more of himself than he wanted, but he figured it was safe to pull the drake's right arm beneath the table and tug up the sleeve so he could wrap his own fingers around the chilly skin he found there. Apart from a small, startled glance, Levi allowed it, leaving their joined hands on Erwin's knee where the detective put them. 

“This has to be your decision, Levi,” Erwin continued, picking up easily where the conversation left off. “What Hanji is proposing--it's something you have a history with. There are other dragons from the stable they can ask and ideally we will be taking a second stable as well. They may already have samples on ice and if not then the younglings will mature and Hanji can ask them then. This isn't something we’re pressuring you to do. It's a request from a friend and it comes with good intentions.”

Erwin could see Hanji biting down on their arguments in favor, nodding their head politely in respect for his preferences. It was a near thing, though. The scientist in them wanted those samples for the good they could do and Erwin understood that, but he also understood that Levi's captors had bred him as well. Whatever that meant to the drake, Erwin did not want him to feel any similarity in his current situation to the one he left, or that they were using him as a means to an end. 

“I'm the only male dragon from the stable of breeding age,” Levi pointed out. “The rest are younglings.”

“It doesn't mean you're obligated to contribute. Please don't think that's why Hanji asked.”

“It’s only a suggestion,” the doctor agreed. “It’s true you are the only male we have that is mature enough to breed, but if you aren’t fully on board we will wait and ask the younglings. None of them were bred at the stable, so for them it would only be ejaculation into a cup just like it is for humans. That’s all it would mean for them.”

“I am fully on board,” the drake insisted. “That’s all it means to me, too. It was unpleasant and embarrassing, but so is having a vet stick a thermometer into your ass. In fact, I think that was probably worse. Are you going to excuse me from ever having my temperature read?”

“That isn’t exactly the same thing.”

“It was for me.” 

“I know, but forcing a dragon to ejaculate?” Moblit asked quietly from across the table. He was the only one bothering to keep his voice down. “Before I met Hanji, I was only ever able to become erect on my own. I can’t imagine a thing like that ever feeling clinical. Outside of a courtship, it could only be--”

“It wasn’t personal,” Levi snapped. “They had a fighting ring to keep stocked, that was all. They took what they wanted from me like Jaeger taking his shit samples. No one ever touched me.”

“They used electroejeculation?” Hanji guessed, adding when Levi looked at them with incomprehension, “They clamped something to you, right? And the sensation was how they stimulated you?”

Erwin considered interrupting. The conversation was getting to that uncomfortable level of personal that Hanji sometimes ended up wandering into. He supposed it had been that uncomfortable level of personal from the start, but asking Levi to come into a bottle and inquiring after the details of the  _ previous _ times he came into a bottle were two entirely different conversations. Only one of those situations was hypothetical. As embarrassed as he felt on Levi’s behalf, though, the drake didn’t seem to be having any trouble. There wasn’t a hint of pink to his milky cheeks and the way he’s been answering questions, he could have been talking about the weather. For the moment, Erwin bit his tongue. Admittedly, he also wanted to know how businesslike Levi’s dealings with the stable hands had really been. He’d been picturing something worse--much worse--than a person rigging Levi to some equipment and stepping back.

“That sounds like what it was. It took several of them to do it, though. I think I was their least favorite.” He grinned and there was real malice in the expression. “They restrained me so I wouldn’t kill them and so they could get the needle in, but that was the only way they ever touched me. It isn’t something I wouldn’t do again under different circumstances, for a different reason.” 

“Needle?” Hanji asked quickly. “What needle?”

Levi shrugged. “I don’t know what it was. They called it  _ go-juice.”  _

Hanji actually groaned, flopping back into the back of the booth and swiping their glasses from their face so they could pinch the bridge of their nose. “Artificial hormones. Holy shit, that is so unsafe. How many times did they do this?” 

“I wasn’t counting.”

The doctor let out a hard, ragged breath through their nose.  _ “Actual barbarians.  _ How the fuck are you  _ alive?” _

The drake looked a little surprised by the revelation, evidently having no idea that he had been in so much danger. “You're going to need to do what they did. I don't think anything short of that will get you results.”

“That isn’t entirely true, anymore,” Hanji sighed. The regret translated clearly across their tone. The world had ended--someone actually managed to turn Hanji  _ off  _ of one of their ideas. “At the stable you were unmated. I suspect that by the time you get back, you won’t have any trouble producing a sample without equipment. That was why I suggested it, not because I wanted to attach an electric vibrator to you and dose you up with potentially lethal synthetic hormones. Jesus, Levi, none of us would do that to you.” 

“Oh.” The drake sat there quietly for a minute and they all sat there quietly with him, thinking their own thoughts. Erwin’s head spun with the idea that Levi had believed they would breed him that way--with an electro-whatever and a syringe--and he’d been perfectly willing to do it anyway because it would help them help other dragons. Because Hanji had asked. He felt the drake looking at him and he realized that his fingers had tightened on Levi’s.

“Why do I feel like I’m the one convincing you to keep going with your own idea?” 

“Because Hanji didn’t think their suggestion through before they made it.” 

Across the table, Hanji winced.

“It’s a good suggestion,” Levi told them. “You’re making it larger than it is. But Erwin, what if we don’t come back?”

“If you don't come back,” Hanji answered seriously. “Not having your sperm on ice will be the least of my regrets.”

“I want you to take it before we leave.” 

In the shocked silence that followed, Erwin felt that horrible sensation of derailment, something spinning out of control as he helplessly watched it burn. He glanced across the table at Hanji, who wore a similar expression, and at Moblit, who just looked ill. He knew that both of them realized how far this had gone and that they’d all lost their grip on it and he knew that Hanji was sorry, but it didn’t stop the small kernel of anger that twitched to life in his chest.

“I would love to take you up on that,” Hanji answered first, their eyes apologetic behind their spectacles. “But you may not be able to make a donation right now in any way I can morally justify. I won't use hormones.”

“Then we'll use Erwin.” The drake said it so simply that the detective almost missed his mouth with the water glass he'd stolen from Hanji to wet his dry throat. Levi raised an eyebrow at him. “I'm sure you haven't missed that my dick seems to like you. We’ll kiss the way they can't kiss on Hallmark and then I'll go and finish up with one of those stupid cotton ball jars.”

Erwin raised his eyes to the ceiling. 

“I want you to take it before we go,” the drake insisted, and there was steel in his tone that Erwin did not recognize. He liked what being assertive did for Levi, even if he hated the argument he was making. “I don't care how. If I die in the race, I want to know I've done something, even if it's this one tiny thing.” He turned in his seat to face Erwin a little more fully and that steel was in his eyes, his fingers. He wasn't backing down, having taken the idea and made it his own and determined its importance to him. “All I've ever done is kill other dragons. That can't be all I'm good for.”

And just like that, he’d won. Erwin had been looking for some way to show Levi that the fighting ring wasn’t all he was and Levi had gone and found that thing on his own. He’d decided that this meant something to him and destroying that would destroy the very thing that Erwin was trying to nurture. Fighting it would do more damage at this point than continuing--probably. There was already a tentative triumph in the drake’s face. “Think about it, please.” Erwin sighed. “Be sure. I don’t want you--”  _ hurting anymore.  _

“It's just sperm in a bottle, you prude,” the drake snapped lightly, though there was no heat in it. Moblit choked on a laugh that he tried unsuccessfully to refashion into a cough, but Levi’s eyes were still on Erwin’s face, uncertain. 

“You know best what you can and can’t tolerate,” the detective said. “If it’s something you decide for yourself to do, I won’t contest it.”

Levi nodded, his eyes a little large with the power of important decision-making. With something akin to relief, Moblit picked up his menu and that was everyone else's cue to relax and do the same. After a moment's hesitation, Levi reached for his with uncovered fingers and everyone pretended politely not to notice any difference. 

When the waitress finally returned with Erwin’s orange juice they were having a very safe and normal discussion about the relative risk of sunny side up eggs versus boiled eggs and whether or not an egg that wasn't boiled had been cooked long enough to destroy salmonella. Moblit ordered his eggs over easy with a challenging look at Hanji, who attempted to hit him with their menu only to have it confiscated and handed calmly to the waitress. Defeated, Hanji ordered their eggs the same way. 

“Their tastes are identical,” Levi noted with some disgust. 

“Only with food.”

“And furniture,” Hanji added, having overheard. 

“I like leeks and Hanji doesn't,” the other drake offered. As if that helped his case very much. 

Levi mostly ignored them both, content to pull the book a little closer and flip pages with his free hand while he absently stroked the inside of Erwin’s knee with the other, seemingly unaware that he was doing so. He treated the book like he'd never handled one before, scowling thoughtfully at the turn of pages and studying each photograph with interest. 

“The photographer can get a little artsy,” Hanji apologized. “The text is good reading, but some of the photos are more practical than others. Their aim, I believe, was to show the carryovers and their beauty to best effect, but some of them look a little over the top, I know. Can you read, by any chance, Levi?”

The drake barely looked up. “Yes, I used to read romance novels between fights. Of course I can read.”

“I could teach you. If you like,” Moblit offered immediately. “I used to teach for a breeder, so I know the process.”

Levi did look up then, settling his full attention on the nervous drake and watching him fidget with an empty straw wrapper for a full ten seconds before he responded. “Thank you. I need to learn.” He paused. “After we get back, though. I don't want to endure it if I'm only going to die in the mountains.”

Moblit laughed again and the awkwardness was gone--mostly. “I'm sure Erwin doesn't want to die in the mountains listening to the alphabet song.”

“No, but I might teach him the lyrics to Highway To Hell,” Erwin told them. “Just in case.”

“I'd have Erwin read it to you in the meantime,” Hanji advised. “It has a lot of interesting information. Oh, there's a thought.” They sat back in their seat, frowning. “Perhaps you should take a novel with you. You’ll need something to do in that tent besides stare at each other and shiver.”

“We probably can't afford the lamplight,” Erwin sighed. “Or the weight.”

“I'll see what I can do,” Hanji said. “We’ve gathered all of the essentials, but morale is essential too. It will do you good to give yourselves a break out there.”

Their food arrived after that and the subject changed--or rather, it drifted. Occasionally, they returned to the race, but they didn't stick to it. There were wide, meandering deviations that looped around and around the subject on everyone's minds. Erwin and Levi would be moving to the preserve for the next couple of days, where they would conduct weight tests and refine their list of supplies. And, of course, surround Levi with the scent of other dragons. 

Erwin watched the drake from the corner of his eye, marveling at the way he cut tidy squares from his dragon-safe waffle and got them all the way to his mouth without spilling a drop of the syrup he'd taken great delight in carefully dispensing into each tiny well. There he was, eating directly across the table from another dragon--a dragon he seemed to be ignoring without any tremendous effort when it hadn't been so long ago that Erwin grabbed his neck to prevent him from killing Nanaba. Even with Hanji's clever series of bottles and jars, it shouldn't have been possible so quickly. And yet, there they all sat. 

Not for the first time, Erwin found himself marveling over Levi's tenacity. He had already accomplished things that would--had--driven others to their knees. In that moment at least, stuffed full of grease and carbs and surrounded by the warm, friendly glow of a table surrounded by friends, it was easy to say with certainty that they would survive. Levi couldn't do anything  _ but _ survive and Erwin was confident that he could keep up. The cold, 3 AM darkness surrounded them, pressing itself to every high window like it wanted to see in, but it didn't concern them. If anything, it encapsulated them, making a safe island of the moment. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the coming chapters, there _may_ be gaps here and there in my rate of posting. I'm trying to avoid it, but I may not know in advance when it will happen so here's a blanket warning. It doesn't indicate any flagging interest, I'm just working out the rest of the timeline as I go. =D


	26. Topography

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Levi makes his donation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was completely unexpected and happened as a result of the unexpected events in the _last_ chapter but maybe it's all for the best. Otherwise, it would have been a million years before any gonads entered the fray.
> 
> I swear there's an actual race in this story somewhere.

_ Are you angry? _

Erwin told himself that he ignored the text because he was driving, not because he needed time to decide. Beside him, the drake was arranged as before, curled up in the heated passenger seat with his book folded protectively between his stomach and his knees. He was having trouble keeping his eyes open, his expression relaxed and peaceful.

“Levi--”

“No.” 

Silence it was, then. Erwin turned on the radio, but kept it low, mostly just to keep his own mind active and alert. It was a long enough drive that the music began merging into a lull of white noise, the vocals and rhythm losing all meaning and becoming part of the general landscape. Sighing, he rolled down the driver side window and stuck his hand out into the chilly wind. 

“What are you doing?”

“Trying to stay awake.”

Levi sat up a little straighter, his eyes opening fully. “You're going to fall asleep while you're driving?”

“Ideally, no.”

“People can  _ do  _ that?”

“With terrifying ease.” Erwin turned the useless radio back down, reaching up to rub his tired eyes one at a time. 

“How far are we from home?” Levi asked, looking anxiously ahead of them like he could actually see the house through twenty miles of dark forest. 

“It isn't far,” Erwin assured him, almost missing Levi’s word choice entirely. “There isn't any reason to worry.”

Still, Levi watched him, calling his name until he answered him back. Laughing sleepily, Erwin said, “There's a human pool game called Marco Polo. You just reminded me. Everyone is in the water and one person calls  _ Marco  _ with their eyes closed. The others respond  _ Polo  _ and the person with their eyes closed tries to follow the voices and catch them.”

“How is this at all like that?” 

“Try it again in a minute.”

“What?”

But after a handful of seconds, he did, his voice lilting uncertainly like he was certain he sounded ridiculous. “Marco?”

“Polo.”

“I like your name better.” But that was how they continued. It was only one less word than  _ I'm awake  _ but the game made it more fun--a shade more mentally engaging. It had the added bonus of being less irritating--just a call and a response. 

“We should get a little sleep before we pack,” Erwin decided, thinking of little else. His body ached for that coffee he'd foregone at the restaurant, or for the dark embrace of sleep. “It's a longer drive to the preserve. Even in daylight, it will be rough.”

“Sleep then. I don't think I can.”

“You have to.” Erwin smiled, and there was actually some humor there despite the circumstances. “You're going to be the one driving, soon.”

The car lapsed into silence. There it remained for a long time. Until,

“Marco?”

Erwin laughed. 

By the time they got out of the car, Erwin’s mood had brightened enough that he could reply politely to Hanji’s text. Sort of. He lingered by the driver-side door as Levi wrestled Hello Kitty out of the passenger side. Erwin had the book under his own arm, so at least the drake wasn’t having to deal with that, too. He was already cursing even more magnificently than Nanaba could, demonstrating a marked talent for stringing vulgarity together into a foul work of art. 

_ if he is hurt because of this i will be,  _ he typed. _ i will be very angry. _

Levi ran to the house with fabric bunched up under his arms, his tiny legs poking out of the bottom. He looked like an old fashioned baroness trying to hold her massive skirts out of the mud. Or a wading bird. Erwin locked up the SUV and followed to get the door for them, a chatter of teeth and fidgety shifting of weight the only sign of life he got from Levi until the house was opened and the drake was squeezing the bulk of an entire king sized comforter past him as fast as he could.  

Erwin’s phone buzzed in his hand.

_ I’m sorry. _

“Come in here.”

Levi had gone straight to the dark kitchen, pushing errant supplies out of his way with an unhappy grimace as he kneeled before of one of the cabinets. Erwin didn’t have to guess what he was after.

“You’re doing it tonight?”

“It’s our last night here,” Levi answered like that made all the sense in the world. When he stood, he came up with a small mason jar in his hand. “Do you think we should bleach this?”

“Probably.” 

Erwin met him at the sink with the chemical, taking the jar from him like it was made of something more delicate than glass. In went a little bleach, then he covered it with the top and shook. “It’s a noble thing you’re doing. I don’t disapprove.”

“But you don’t approve, either.”

Erwin dumped the bleach and replaced it with water, making sure to rinse thoroughly. He was pretty sure that corrosive chemicals and tiny, sensitive cells would not mix favorably. He used it as an opportunity to consider his response. “You've asked me to help bring you to orgasm because Hanji thinks it would be a good idea to breed you. Earlier tonight we stopped doing something very similar because it was too soon.” He turned a level look on Levi, who was frowning, but made no immediate move to protest. “A few hours and an inspiring idea doesn't change that.”

“It isn't the breeding I'm not ready for. It's--” he hesitated. 

“Me?” Erwin guessed. 

Levi looked at him quickly, but glanced away. “Both of us. We're not mated.”

“I need you to tell me, then,” Erwin dumped the jar and rinsed it again, swirling water around the sides. “How do we keep this safe for you?”

The drake shrugged. “What we've done so far is alright. Just leave my dick where it is.”

“I wasn't going to take it anywhere.” But Erwin's dread sapped the humor from his tone. 

The dish towel was there when he needed it, appearing at his elbow where Levi held it out to him. “I won’t forget where I am,” the drake assured him. “I promise I was telling the truth when I said I would rather do this than the ass thermometer. It’s nothing.”

Erwin put the jar down carefully, leaving it to rest on its side in a safe swaddle of dish towel. “You’d best come here, then, so I can kiss you the way they can’t kiss on Hallmark.” He quirked an eyebrow over the reused words, reaching out and hooking his finger over the waistline of the drake’s sweatpants. Had Levi not already been stepping forward the elastic would have done little to help Erwin pull him in, but they met somewhere in the middle. It was less of a collision than a polite introduction of bodies. Erwin did not have to take a steadying step back and did not end up leaning against the countertop. All the heat of their previous kisses was gone. 

Levi’s enthusiasm had given way to guarded control. He knew what he needed from the detective and it wasn't a simple case any longer of wanting it for its own sake. The whole encounter had a stiff, businesslike quality to it that Erwin took immediate exception to, circling Levi with an arm and pulling him into a much less respectable position. His opposite hand found Levi's scalp and he raked blunt fingernails through the drake's hair, not pulling just yet but teasing him with the potential. That earned him a startled inhale, a shaky exhale, then Levi's arms tightened on his waist and the rest of him melted into Erwin like all he'd needed was a sign that everything was okay. 

There were no extra hands to touch the drake’s face, so Erwin applied his lips to the task, pressing them first to the sharp ridge of bone beneath an eye, then in, towards the nose. It had been broken before. Erwin hadn't ever noticed that, but he was close enough now that he could see the tiny nick where the skin had split. Erwin lay his lips over it. Then, up to his forehead. By the time he made it back to the dragon's lips, they were curved upwards in a smile, his body loose and comfortable in Erwin's arms. 

“What are you doing?” Levi asked. 

“You looked like you needed kissing.”

“On my nose?”

Erwin’s fingers curled into a loose fist and he tugged Levi's head back, finally giving him the pressure he’d been waiting for. Thin lips parted, but no sound came out--only a slight shudder of air. Levi was quieter than he initially seemed, his control broken only by the sounds Erwin could startle from him. The dragon was becoming familiar with this, though, and it showed in more ways than his silence. As their lips met, Levi corrected the angle minutely so their joining would be smooth, tensing for another reason entirely as shivers rippled through him. His pleasure was subdued like he kept a firm harness on that, too. 

Erwin deepened the kiss, meandering through his own curious explorations now that he was satisfied that Levi was clear on the basics. He felt the drake's fingers clench in his shirt, his breathing changing in rhythm as he took quick gasps of air between kisses that he was probably too quick to return to. 

“Breathe,” the detective murmured, holding Levi steady when he tried to close the short distance between them. The low growl that rumbled to life in the drake's chest delivered a bolt of heat straight to Erwin's groin--something that probably shouldn't have happened, considering the number of times that sound had been a very real threat. Erwin leaned back in, but dodged Levi's attempt to intercept him and ducked beneath the dragon’s chin to press his lips to the front of his throat. The growl did not seem to be coming from his vocal cords at all, barely a wisp of vibration passing through them. Erwin had a moment to catch that intriguing fact before Levi went still with surprise, abruptly cutting himself off as he forgot his irritation. 

“What are you doing?” He asked again. 

But Erwin's eyes had landed on the cluster of long jagged scars over Levi’s jugular. They started almost just below his ear and curled around, stopping inches from the detective's nose. They were mostly white with age, but a few places--the deepest tears--were still faintly pink where they hadn't gotten around to fading. The flesh was uneven. It had been torn as opposed to sliced, the other dragon’s teeth dragging rather than leaving a clean cut. The texture was interesting where the damaged skin had healed as best as it could, bunching in places, leaving some raised areas and some sunken ones where the muscle had been gouged away. It was a tactile feast and Erwin was struck by the inspiration of it, turning his head the few necessary inches to press his lips to one of the raised sections of skin. 

But Levi flinched in his arms, the sound he made far from pleasurable. “Erwin!”

The detective pulled away like he'd been burned, catching a glimpse of the wide-eyed alarm he'd caused and feeling alarmed himself for having caused it. His fingers released Levi’s hair and the drake turned his chin down immediately, his shoulder rising like it meant to protect an injury. 

“I'm sorry,” Erwin assured him quickly, his hand soothing now where it smoothed over the back of Levi’s head. “Should I not?”

“Why would you?” He was visibly flustered and the question came hurtling out of him without his permission if the following wince was anything to go by. But he clamped down firmly on his control and went on quickly before Erwin could reply. “Just ignore them. They can be there without needing anything.”

“Why am I ignoring them?” Erwin asked. “Is it because of something you believe or something you believe I believe?” 

Levi looked at him like he had something hanging out of his nose, his cheeks flushed with mortification. He’d probably spoken too quickly, too, in his shock, his words made difficult to parse. 

“I'm not trying to embarrass you.” Erwin reached up and brushed his knuckles across the drake's rosy skin. “But it's important that you don't think it's me.”

“I thought you would avoid them. It surprised me, that's all.” 

Erwin did not think that was all. “Why would I avoid them?”

Levi shrugged, coming off as perfectly casual if Erwin could ignore the heat beneath his thumb. “They're ugly. What happened was ugly.”

“What happened was ugly,” Erwin agreed. “The marks aren't. I won't touch them if you don't want me to, but I won't have you thinking I find you off-putting.”

Levi hesitated. His expression gave little away, but his heart hammered against Erwin's chest--something that Erwin was sorry for. “Later,” he said slowly. “Not yet.”

“Okay,” Erwin agreed. “But you believe me?”

“Mm.” Levi was busy trying to catch them up in another kiss and distract them both from the tension that had cast a shadow over them. 

“Levi.”

“Please, don't.”

“Don't what?” 

Levi opened his mouth to answer, but he didn't get anything else out so Erwin did something he'd been careful up until that point to avoid. He let his hips shift, twisting against Levi and pulling him into his body until he had them where he wanted them, looking down at the drake’s embarrassment and hating it, wanting it to scatter. Erwin was still half hard and as he slowly, deliberately rolled his hips into Levi’s abdomen he knew as soon as that expression faltered that he'd felt it. 

“If this is a courtship thing, you needn't worry. Please don't question your potential as a partner over this, because I'm certainly not.”

Levi made an aborted choking sound, unable or unwilling to say anything in response. He'd gotten even redder if that could be possible, his cheeks so hot that it was a surprise they didn't ignite the surrounding air. Erwin tightened his grip on the drake and rocked into him, allowing Levi to feel how quickly he hardened with his cock pinned firmly between their bodies. The drake's reaction was instinctive, his pelvis trying vaguely to move with Erwin, though it was purely reactive. If he was aware of it, he didn't make any indication. 

“Don't mistake my patience for disinterest. If you and I mate, I'm mating all of you, not just the parts I choose not to ignore.” The rhythm Erwin set was too slow to allow him any sort of release. It was too slow to be terribly distracting, either, though he kept it up so that Levi felt everything. They were short, shallow thrusts, never requiring their bodies to part. “The scars aren't a concession,” the detective continued lazily, his voice dropping in pitch as his arousal built. Levi stood transfixed, his pupils dilated as he gazed up at the man through the gloom. Erwin had to stop what he was doing to kiss that face, though he was sure there’d been something else he meant to say. 

There was an impatient noise from the drake, but no objection. He closed his eyes and let Erwin kiss his nose--a remarkably sweet contrast to the arousal pooling in the detective’s belly. “Concession,” Levi reminded him after a moment. 

“They aren’t,” Erwin agreed, though when Levi nudged him he realized that his thoughts had been drifting--an issue he wasn’t ordinarily prone to. His hips stilled. “It was a terrible life you survived, but you did survive it. That impossible resilience you have--the ability to persist when everyone around you has given up--is impressive to me. Your strength is attractive, and I see that strength when I look you. Your scars are only remnants of the things that couldn’t destroy you. In that sense, for that reason, they’re all terribly erotic.”

Levi had to know that it wasn’t a lie. Erwin’s full length was more than evident in their position, shamelessly presented along the drake’s abdomen where Levi could probably feel a strong pulse twitching through the vein along the back side. “Do you believe what I've told you?” he asked, drawing attention to his arousal with a little pressure to the small of Levi’s back and a deliberate push forward.

“I … fuck,” Levi uttered hoarsely. 

Point made, Erwin moved to get his obvious erection out of Levi's way, but the drake had quick hands and they jumped to Erwin’s hips before that interest could go safely back into hiding. Fingernails pricked through tough denim fabric as Levi’s grip tightened, holding the detective firmly in place so he could arch into him. The small heat nestled against the front of Erwin’s thigh blossomed into something much hotter as Levi’s flagging passion came quickly back to life, stubbornly unthwarted by the brief dampening effect of their previous conversation. His height prevented their groins from aligning, but a low string of frustrated cursing convinced Erwin to try bending his knee, allowing it to nudge up between Levi’s legs if that was something he wanted. 

_ “Shit,”  _ the drake hissed, barely getting the sound out. He released Erwin’s hips so his arms could circle the man’s waist, holding him fast as his hips twitched experimentally against the thigh he’d been offered. It took a few small adjustments before he found an angle he liked, but then he moved against the detective in earnest, his mouth searing Erwin’s where it landed haphazardly along his neck and skipped like a pebble over a lake.

Evidently, that did not entirely satisfy. Abandoning Erwin’s throat with a quick swipe of his tongue, he lifted his head to glower a proper kiss from the man. Evidently, Levi would scowl his way through sexual encounters as well. Trying not to smile over that, Erwin leaned down to lay his lips over the furious little furrow between the dragon’s thin eyebrows, knowing it wasn’t at all what he was after. Levi was hard and flushed in his arms, building an unmistakable rhythm with his hips that made Erwin want to see if he could coax another of those frustrated growls from him. He didn’t exactly succeed.

The detective barely registered the initial collision, the way their front teeth clicked together in a way that should have made him cringe. He was busy holding on to Levi, reminding his hands not to slide beneath the waistline of his pants, though they did find their way up the back of the drake’s sweatshirt. He felt twisted flesh beneath his fingertips, but ignored it, moving on when his fingers might have preferred to linger. He was a tactile person and the topography of Levi’s back begged to be explored, just not right then. Perhaps later, Levi would allow the detective to lay him flat and map him like an unexplored country, but for now Erwin contented himself with the familiar furrow of his spine, tracing it up with the pads of his fingers and dragging his nails lightly back down. Once, again. 

Levi tore their mouths apart, his sides heaving like he'd just broken the surface of a deep lake. He turned his chin down, tucked his head into the detective’s chest and panted urgently, “I need the jar.”

Something in that tone prompted an immediate response from Erwin. He reached automatically for the glass, placing it in one of Levi’s shaking hands, but something cold and uncomfortable was jolting through him. “We need to move to the other room,” he replied. “You need to sit so I can go.”

“Too close.” Levi twisted his hips aside and tried yanking the front of his pants down with a couple of fingers that were not holding the jar. He seemed unwilling to let go of Erwin even if it would make things easier. It wasn’t a very productive effort, but he must have finally gotten his erection free because after a moment his struggling became less pronounced. 

“You wanted privacy,” Erwin reminded him. “Your words.”

“It’s okay,” the drake breathed. He’d gone perfectly still as he became aware of the fact that he had a jar and a dick and only one hand to maneuver both and if he wanted to do so he was going to have to drop Erwin’s shirt. “You won’t touch me.”

It wasn’t a question, but Erwin answered anyway. “I won’t touch you. Do you want me to  _ see  _ this, though?”

Levi breathed a short laugh. “You’re not the first man who’s stared at me while I filled containers.”

“No, but I’m probably the first one sporting an erection as you did so.”

Levi shrugged, looking up with eyes that were ragged with unsated arousal. “Makes it better. Please stay. I can’t--how do I--”

Oh. It had always been vibration. 

“Give me the jar,” Erwin instructed, leaning around the top of Levi's head so he could see what he was doing. He wanted to grab the container, not the dragon, though he couldn't believe he'd thought such a thing once his eyes found the dark, leaking head of his cock. He'd seen it through its foreskin plenty of times when he'd been flaccid and thought it might be pigmented, but at the time he hadn't dared speculate. Or stare. Now, he didn't have to do the former because he was in an excellent position to do the latter. Levi had the same perfect gradation there as he did everywhere else. 

Erwin was fairly sure that if Levi moved the wrong way he would be coming right along with him. 

But his fingers could only curl regretfully around the bottom of the chilly glass, freeing up Levi's hand so he could finish things himself. “Wrap your fingers around the shaft and pull down towards the head.” The detective’s voice did not sound like his own. “You'll be most sensitive there.” 

Levi reached for himself with a small relieved moan, watching in fascination as he slid through his own closed fist. He adjusted his grip as he figured out what felt the best to him, obviously experimenting rather than performing a familiar action. He’d never touched himself this way, then. It was something Erwin had never spared a thought for because somehow he had assumed that even spending his whole life in that stable surrounded by filth and death, Levi’s body would have ached for touch. He’d hit maturity there. He’d weathered the hormonal storm of puberty, the spontaneous flush of arousal, the time for those first curious explorations of hands and fingers over his own skin, with no experience to show for any of it. The way he moved now, like he had discovered something truly extraordinary, told Erwin that it hadn’t even occurred to him that he could need this. He didn’t know himself because he had never been given a chance to. 

Erwin bent to kiss the top of Levi's head, though his lips remained there and he closed his eyes, breathing the dragon in and leaving him to his self-education. It seemed too private for Erwin to watch even if Levi didn’t seem to feel that way. Slowly, he ran his hand up the drake’s spine and tried to cool his own body down, but he was finely attuned to every breath Levi took and his cock twitched dangerously when they changed, hitching slightly with each inhale. They were short, quick sounds that very nearly came out as moans, still all breath and no voice, but very, very close. 

Erwin wasn't fooling himself. He could tell everyone that he, too, needed more time to consider the courtship because it was what Levi wanted. He could lie and say that he hadn't made up his mind, but in fact he already belonged pretty solidly to the little drake that had just gone rigid in his arms, letting out a quiet, “Nn!” like his pleasure had surprised him. Levi turned his head sideways and inhaled deeply from the front of Erwin’s shirt, then the bottom of the glass warmed in the detective’s hand as Levi emptied himself into it, small fingers spasming in the fabric at the back of Erwin's shirt where he hung on for dear life. The moment hung like time had stopped.

When Levi finally moved, it was only to take another breath, his back swelling abruptly beneath the closed fist that Erwin hadn’t realized he’d made. He loosened his fingers quickly and the pain started, palm stinging where he hadn’t been mindful of his blunt human fingernails. He reached out and left the jar carefully on the counter, ignoring it for the moment so he could pull the waistline of Levi’s pants back over his hips. The way the drake was beginning to melt into him, Erwin doubted he’d be doing it himself. 

“Can you walk?” 

Levi simply grunted. 

“Okay. Go to the sofa, then, before you fall down. I’ll take care of this and meet you there.”

The drake moved so reluctantly that it was physically painful to stand there, throbbing in his pants as he waited. He stoically endured a lazy kiss, holding his hips at an awkward distance that Levi must have noticed because he was suddenly pulling back, scowling at him again. “Do you need to--” It wasn’t shyness that had him pausing, but a lack of vocabulary. “Get off?”

Oh god, he did have the vocabulary. 

“I’ll only be a minute.” 

Levi nodded carefully, his expression unhappy. Erwin pulled the phone from his back pocket and fired of a quick text to Hanji.  _ does semen go in the fridge or the freezer _

The reply he got was immediate and forceful, all apologies and tensions forgotten.  _ Oh shit, have you already done it? No, no, holy tits no it has to be cooled gradually. There’s equipment for freezing sperm safely.  _

_ we just finished. it’s still on the counter.  _ Erwin almost didn’t dare to ask the next question.  _ can we save it? _

_ Maybe???? I’m going to swing by one of the breeders I’m friendly with and then I’ll be right over with the equipment we need. Leave it on the counter to reach room temperature and if I’m not there yet you will need to set the jar down into some cool water, but I’m coming as fast as I can.  _

Erwin wondered if the doctor would still be friendly with the breeder after they woke them up at the crack of dawn asking after their semen preservation equipment.  _ okay,  _ he said instead of asking.  _ don’t tell levi that his semen is in danger. he’ll want to do it again.  _

Hanji seemed to be typing for an inordinate amount of time before their tiny, hesitant question came through.  _ Is he okay?  _

_ he’s fine. i’m not angry.  _ He wasn’t exceedingly angry, anyway. He wasn’t so angry that he wanted to make an issue of it right before entering a race that might kill him. Leaving any of his friends that way was a terrible thing to consider. 

Erwin slipped away to the upstairs bedroom, tossing his phone onto his/Levi’s mattress and continuing straight on to the adjoining bathroom, where he kicked his pants off without finesse and pumped himself hard until he came without preamble into the toilet. The gesture was swift and efficient--an action performed for the sole purpose of providing the relief he needed to return to Levi without any urgent need to press him into the sofa and rut against him until he reached his own completion. If the memory of Levi’s dark erection had flashed behind his eyelids, it was brief and unindulgent. 

Erwin wiped himself off and threw on a clean pair of underwear, leaving everything else where it lay. He would be back up shortly for a shower, as would Levi, and the drake would probably insist they do laundry before they leave. He took an extra pair of bottoms for the dragon, but he needn’t have bothered. When he returned to the living room, Levi had removed everything but the shirt and gone back into the kitchen to clean himself up. His sprawl was untidy and sated, his spent cock laying bare and quiescent against his muscled thigh. It was so shameless, so trusting, that the detective gave an exhausted smile. 

“You’re still flushed,” he said, only to see if he could make that shade of red a little darker. He could.

Erwin tumbled onto the sofa, ignoring the surprised sound that came out of Levi as he landed more or less on top of the drake. He felt exactly like he hadn't slept all night and then followed up by releasing a week’s worth of sexual frustration into the toilet bowl like an out of control fifteen year old. Fortunately, he had a little life left in him because the position he'd fallen in would get uncomfortable quickly. He was able to shift around until the bulk of his weight lay wedged between Levi and the back of the sofa, his head coming to rest at the crook of the drake's shoulder where it fit nicely into the shallow hollow there. 

“Comfortable?” came the dry question.

“Cover me up and I will be.”

Levi reached up and pulled the blanket from the back of the sofa, kicking his leg out to more or less spread it over them. Erwin’s bare toes were still sticking out, but he didn’t have the energy to care, much less do anything about it. When Levi’s limb came to rest, he'd thrown it possessively over the top of Erwin's thigh and something about that felt entirely appropriate. The detective sighed, his eyes closing. 

“Did you really want me there or was it the heat of the moment?”

“Shut up, I'm fine,” Levi yawned, kissing idly at the man’s forehead. “Prudish old man. I haven't ever come like that before. Where it was  _ good.” _

“You don't regret anything, then?”

“No, it felt--” Levi paused as he searched for the right word, his fingers wandering into Erwin’s hair where they established an exquisite, lulling rhythm that would undoubtedly have him asleep in moments. “--safe. Good.”

“Good,” Erwin repeated, and it was. About the only thing he could comfortably reach in his current state was Levi's rib cage and there was that blasted giant shirt in his way. He sighed again, less contentedly, shifting so he could slip his hand beneath the offending fabric. All that time Levi had gone naked, and now that Erwin had successfully gotten clothes on him they were in the way. It figured. His fingers moved upwards along the drake's side, casually bypassing several places where the skin was not smooth. He noticed those places now that he wasn't allowed to notice them, longing for Levi to let him. But his ribs were safe to play with. Everybody had ribs. Erwin was glad that Levi's were sinking back into his flesh where they belonged. He fit his fingers into the faint grooves and followed them up and down like pathways and Levi’s soft hum of approval sounded almost like a little moan. He'd coax more sounds like that from him. Erwin was still thinking about it when his eyes slid shut and he fell into some shapeless, comfortable dream. 


	27. Weight Tests

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dragons continue to eat things they shouldn't and Erwin gets his first aerial view of the preserve.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These titles are getting more and more creative. 
> 
> I think this is also the longest I've gone without updating and I'm sorry about that. It was a combination of my weekend being unexpectedly crowded (but now I can safely use a firearm and defend my home from hostile intruders so I can continue to write you things) and the chapter being unexpectedly lengthy. 
> 
> In other news, I have taken Friday the 20th and Monday the 23rd off work for the sole purpose of locking myself in my room and working on my original novel for four days solid. There will not be an update that weekend, so I'm going to try my damnedest to get another one out before then to make up for it. That may mean another weird, midweek update.

They did not have long to sleep. Hanji arrived within the hour--a feat so remarkable that Erwin’s exhaustion-muddled brain was already wondering if it was too late to slip out the back door when the doctor raised their voice to be heard over their relentless knocking. 

“Erwin, holy shit, that sample is going to go off before you get around to letting me in!” 

“Oh,” the man murmured. “I thought it might be the DCA.”

“I felt you tense.” Levi’s hands still moved through his hair, unconcerned about Hanji waiting outside. “But it’s still very early.” 

Erwin sighed. Levi was right, of course. It couldn’t be any later than four in the morning, but he hadn’t considered that when he heard the knock. His mind had gone immediately on the defensive. “It’s good that we’re leaving today. We probably should have already been gone.” He rolled carefully over the drake, though his weight could hardly hurt him, and left a casual kiss on the corner of his mouth. “I’d better let the good doctor in. Did you sleep?”

“No.”

“You should try to catch a few minutes, then. Hanji can help me load everything into the SUV.”

But Levi was already moving to follow, his hair mussed and his eyes shadowed. “Who could sleep through all that?” he muttered, raking his fingers through the fine strands and ultimately making it worse. “Shit Glasses is an entire stampede on their own. I’m getting a shower. You need one, too.”

He left Erwin to see to Hanji, who grinned at him as they swept by. “I told you I would be quick. There’s a good chance it’s still viable, despite the miscommunication.” The doctor kneeled to place their precious piece of equipment carefully on the floor and as Erwin looked at the complicated configuration he wondered if it came with instructions or if semen storage was simply one of Hanji’s many areas of expertise. 

“This will take some time,” the doctor told him. “If you have any last minute packing to do, now is your chance. I’m assuming you wanted to leave here right away?” 

Erwin nodded. If they left at five and drove the posted speed limit, they would arrive at the preserve sometime between seven and seven-thirty, just in time to beat the morning rush and still late enough that their arrival wouldn’t drag his friends out of bed too much earlier than they would have already gotten up. “Within the next half hour.”

“That’s probably for the best. You won’t get a second chance to avoid the DCA. You barely got a first.” 

It was like they’d plucked Erwin’s thoughts directly from his head. “Levi informs me that I need to shower. Then there was some clothing to put together.” 

“Don’t worry about clothing,” Hanji told him dismissively. “You’ll need socks, but I have the rest covered.” 

“You bought us clothes?”

“I picked up your racing colors yesterday. You only have one set of leathers, but there are several sets of thermal layers that go underneath. And above. You’re all set.” 

“You bought us underwear?”

“Designed to wick moisture, yes. You each have several pairs. However,” they looked up at him frankly, “I wouldn’t advise stripping to the bare skin once you move beyond a certain latitude, even in the tent. But I have no doubt that you’ll know those days when you encounter them.”

Erwin felt cold just thinking about it. And unclean. Both of these were things a hot shower could fix, so he was more than happy to leave Hanji to it. Watching someone handle Levi’s semen in such a clinical fashion would be strange to him, anyway. Upstairs, he heard water running from the hall, but he knew immediately that it was coming from the wrong side of the house. Levi was using his bathroom. 

He stepped into the muggy room without worrying overmuch for Levi’s modesty. He wasn’t sure the dragon understood the definition of the word. “I need some shampoo.” On the other side of the frosted glass, Levi paused, his dark shape growing still. “I'm trying to get us out of here as soon as possible, so I'm going to use the other shower.”

“Use this one,” the drake said dismissively. “I'm not fighting you for the hot water.”

Erwin’s surprise lasted just long enough that the shower door cracked open and Levi's scowling face appeared, his eyes sharp with displeasure. “You're letting a draft in.”

“You're supposed to let a draft in,” Erwin sighed. “Sealing up all this steam is bad for the paint.” But he let the door swing closed behind him and stepped farther into the room, peeling off his pants as he went. He hadn't made any special effort to make it erotic, but Levi's eyes fell anyway. He didn't bother hiding his interest, but it was too soon for Erwin’s cock to be expressing any of its own. Still, it tried. 

“My dick is a carryover, too?” The drake snorted. “Figures.”

His head disappeared into the shower, though it was probably the chill rather than any real emotion that prompted his retreat. Erwin followed with a heartfelt shiver, finding it difficult to blame Levi for wanting the door closed. 

“Yes, I wonder what percentage of desirable, wild-type genetics a carryover dick represents,” Erwin drawled, pulling the shower door closed behind him with a clatter. 

“Hanji could probably tell you. Why don't I call them up?”

Erwin reached around Levi for the shampoo he’d requested. “Best not. They're busy preserving your legacy.”

“I was done. I can do that.”

“Completely done?” Erwin asked, though he did close his eyes and tip his head forward. He felt the drake shrug through the fingers that pressed into his hair.

“The company in here is better, so I thought I'd stay. Don't open your eyes,” he added, as though Erwin couldn't feel the suds spilling down past his hairline. Safely spent, the detective could allow his hands to drift lazily down Levi's sides to his sharp hips without any uncomfortable repercussions below the belt, able to simply enjoy the sensation of fingers in his hair. Levi was thorough, but of course he would be. By the time they reversed their positions Erwin had no doubt the young woman who cut his hair could not have done better. He tipped his head back into the spray and let Levi reach up to push all the suds back out again. 

“Thank you.”

“We only have a few more days to be clean. We are going to spend them being clean.” Levi’s fingers chased an errant trail of foamy suds back up the side of Erwin’s face, swiping them safely away from the detective’s eyes.

“Constant cleanliness isn’t a promise you’ll be able to keep, I’m afraid.” Loading the SUV wasn’t dirty work, but they wouldn’t be spending their time at the preserve idly. “We still have weight tests.”

Levi made a truly pitiful sound and leaned forward to lick the water from Erwin’s clavicle, giving himself only a moment to linger before retrieving the body wash.

Erwin was certain that Levi wouldn’t have minded standing there in the shower until the sun came up, but the house was becoming less safe for them every minute they stayed and they moved with an unspoken haste that prevented the shower from being truly relaxing for either of them. No one had time or energy to devote to commenting on that as they went down to pack the SUV, but Erwin wondered if it rankled with Levi the same way it rankled with him, having to run from their own home. Even Hanji only spoke when necessary, suggesting revisions to what went where or asking someone to hold items for them while they stuffed things into nooks and crannies. The three of them fell into a tidy assembly line where Levi relocated things from the house to the lawn and Erwin served as Hanji’s personal assistant from there. 

“Put the saddle over the back seat,” they told Levi as he carried it out. “Erwin, some of those smaller things will go into the saddlebag.” They caught the doubtful look on Erwin’s face and sighed. “You can carry all this. It will be more portable when it comes out of the boxes.” But the expression on their face clearly read,  _ I hope.  _

Everything went  into the SUV without spilling into Hanji’s car as well, which was fortunate because the doctor still needed to collect Moblit before they could join them. Erwin and Levi seemed to decide by mutual agreement to leave the radio off as they made the drive themselves. It would have been too much clamor, so they listened instead to the road noise and the quiet passing of other cars moving sparsely in the opposite direction. The farther north they went, the fewer there were. Spring would bring all manner of outdoorsmen to their end of the state, but the off season saw little in the way of visitors--only the few who came up for winter camping. 

Erwin had a feeling he would return from Canada with even less interest in being one of those people than he had when he left. He watched Levi shift in his seat, pressing against the back like he was trying to become one with the heating coils buried somewhere inside of the upholstery. He probably hadn't packed enough socks. 

“Call Mike,” Erwin instructed the hands free. This particular feature had been a part of Levi’s car button education, but he still looked over curiously when Erwin spoke. 

_ “Call Mike. Is that correct?” _

“Yes.”

_ “Calling Mike.” _

The phone rang for a long time before anyone picked up. It was a couple rings from going to voicemail when the line connected, followed immediately by a light thump and a muttered curse, a rustle of sheets or clothing, fumbling, uncoordinated fingers. 

_ “No, _ why is there light outside?” the dragon on the other end moaned by way of greeting. 

Levi leaned towards the microphone, though it was probably unnecessary from that short distance away. “Hi, Banana. We’re about to pull into your driveway.” 

Over Nanaba’s disjointed cursing, Erwin called, “Thirty minutes, actually.”

_ “Banana?” _

“What bananas?” they could hear Mike ask in the background, his voice distant. “Are they bringing us breakfast?”

_ “Yes,” _ Nanaba hissed. “As a matter of fact, they are. It was Levi’s idea.”

“How sweet of him,” Mike said drily, clearly understanding that there was something else going on even if he didn't know what it was. 

“The only place left between us is that little gas station. Do you want us to pick you up a hotdog?”

“With sauerkraut.”

Erwin rolled his eyes at her stubbornness. Nanaba would do a lot of things before she folded to a challenge, including hot dogs with sauerkraut for breakfast. “Mike?”

“I woke up with an intense craving for scrambled eggs, so I’m all set.” Mike’s careful answer demonstrated his wisdom where Nanaba was concerned. Tidily avoiding any association with the early morning hotdog struggle was probably his best move.

Levi took one look at the worn, peeling exterior of the gas station and followed Erwin in, stating firmly that someone may need to protect him from giant roaches with a taste for blondes. It was fortunate that the drake had consented to wearing a loose pair of sweatpants for the drive, because he would not have been easy to discourage with or without a proper set of bottoms. The man behind the counter eyed his sock-clad feet like he was trying to decide if he should say something along the lines of  _ shirt and shoes required, Sir,  _ but he must have seen something in Levi’s scowl that told him it wouldn’t be worth the trouble. He sold them the hotdog with professional grace--or apathy--and they were back on the road in minutes, blessedly and remarkably without incident. 

It was still warm by the time the sleepy gate guard waved them through and they drove all the way up the road to the rehabilitation center to meet his friends, who were waiting outside for them in their dressing gowns. 

“We have volunteers working the preserve today and tomorrow.” Mike rose from the stair where he’d been seated, his pirate-themed pajama pants flapping gently in the breeze. Levi eyeballed them so speculatively that Erwin feared they'd be having a conversation about the difference between house pants and public pants. The drake wasn't paying Nanaba much attention, but she moved subtly away from the building, giving herself room to beat a quick exit if Moblit turned out to be the singular recipient of Levi’s newfound tolerance. Mike continued without acknowledging it. “My father is coordinating so we’re yours until the race.”

The detective nodded. “If they need you--”

“Dad can handle it.” Mike waved a hand over the gravel drive. “Just park right around in here. We aren't expecting any deliveries today.”

That arrangement suited Erwin just fine if it suited them. He rolled the window up and cut the engine, leaving the SUV right there where he’d stopped it. Levi waited for him to get out and come around the vehicle, but he seemed at ease when he slid out to stand beside Erwin, slow with caution but mostly relaxed. He edged forward with the greasy paper bag held out in front of him for Nanaba to take, using that roundabout approach--one of those slight, indirect arcs that made them both less threatening to the other. Levi stopped as far away as his reach allowed. 

“Thanks.”

“It smells like ass.”

Nanaba grinned. “Asses aren’t supposed to smell like sauerkraut. Maybe you should get yours checked before you leave.”

One corner of Levi’s mouth twitched, but that was all. “The vet has been right up my ass, but if you'd like to double check …”

Erwin exchanged a certain kind of look with Mike. They understood in that moment what they had done to themselves by introducing two people whose senses of humor were so compatible. They’d created a perfect storm of cheerful barbs and biting rejoinders that no one would be able to fully understand from a friendship standpoint. Erwin could already see it getting worse, turning into the sort of exchanges that would end most relationships. He’d only seen Nanaba really cut loose on people she genuinely hated and he had a feeling that Levi had much more in him than Erwin had seen. Set upon someone that could match them cut for cut, they could become a frightening combination. 

“We brought trash bags,” Mike said slowly, watching Nanaba move to the wide steps with her breakfast. “There’s two different kinds so we can separate garbage from recycling.”

“Black bags are bigger,” Nanaba mentioned. “And heavier.” She nudged one of the boxes with the toe of her muddy work boots--into which she had tucked the hems of her Road Runner and Coyote pajama pants. They’d brought a full box of each size bag, though they shouldn’t have needed more than a couple. 

Erwin opened the liftgate at the back of the SUV and looked at the chaos inside with fresh eyes. There was a lot of cardboard, some plastic. “There will probably be more recycling than garbage. Black for that.”

They worked fairly quickly all together, slicing packaging open with Mike’s utility knife or peeling plastic and cardboard apart or opening boxes. They lay everything out on the stairs and porch, slowly surrounding Nanaba with untidy rows of supplies as she finished up her breakfast. When she joined them, it was to consult the list they made, checking items off as she made sure everything was there. She rearranged things as she went, separating them by levels of necessity. The sleeping bags and tent, for example, were vital. The heat lamp went into that stack, as did a couple of canteens and a bottle of something that looked like it might go into water to sterilize it. There was a camp stove and a backup, canisters of white gas, a third pile of liners and underlayers developing alongside the sleeping bags with their vapor-barrier linings. They had lithium batteries and headlamps, a folding multitool and a larger utility knife. There was a first aid kit and a roll of duct tape, a package full of maps, sunscreen, petroleum jelly. It went on and on. There wasn’t quite so much in the ‘nonessential’ pile, but Erwin noticed with a wince that their toothbrushes and other toiletries went there. 

They were more or less organized by the time Hanji arrived with Moblit.

“I meant to get coffee, but in my rush I forgot it,” the doctor said, eyes skimming over the work they’d done. “You look about ready.”

“We just need to load the saddle bags,” Nanaba answered. 

“We should put Erwin on him first. I’m assuming, of course, that you’ve never been mounted, Levi?”

“Not in any way.”

Hanji nodded briskly, rubbing their hands together as they stepped up onto the running board to lean into Erwin’s back seat. Having learned to anticipate his mate’s missteps, Moblit stepped up and caught the doctor deftly as they made an awkward movement backwards and stumbled under the unwieldy bulk of the saddle. 

“Be careful,” he murmured, his hands lingering at Hanji’s hips like he expected them to fall over from a completely stationary position. In his defense, that was probably entirely possible where Hanji was concerned. If there was a physical job to be done they would find a way to lightly damage themselves doing it. Their shins always had bruises on them, whether it was from tripping over furniture in the middle of the night or knocking them into the bathtub as they cleaned. 

Hanji grinned fondly at the somber drake. “Erwin will have to put it on him, anyway. Levi, if you would take your natural form?”

Behind the doctor, Moblit shifted his weight uncomfortably. The request was thrown out there so casually, but the last time Levi had encountered another dragon in his natural form, he’d been killing them. Nanaba hid her unease more effectively than Moblit did, but only by small degrees. 

Levi looked to Erwin. “Would it make a difference?”

“If you can tolerate them now, you will be able to tolerate them in your dragon form,” Hanji answered easily. “Nothing in your perception of pheromones will differ across shapes.”

“If you’re wrong, I’ll be harder for Erwin to subdue.”

“Moblit and Nanaba can go inside, if you like--if they like--but only your sense of smell will become sharper. Your Jacobson’s organ will not be affected.” 

“Mine isn’t,” Moblit agreed reluctantly. “If they trained you strictly on pheromones, that won’t be any different.”

Levi looked at Moblit for a moment. He was more confident with the shy drake than he was with Nanaba, whose personality was more forceful and therefore made her more of a potential target. He didn't quite trust himself with either dragon, but he clearly saw Moblit as less of an opponent. Thoughtfully, he nodded. 

“If I attack one of you, don't split up.”

“Don't worry,” Nanaba drawled. “We know what our odds are.”

Levi sighed, rubbing at one side of his face like it hurt him. He was probably exhausted. Erwin wasn't even sure how long it had been since he slept. These experiments were things their survival depended upon, so he knew the drake would push through his discomfort, but Erwin would have to be sure they  _ both  _ slept that night. This was too much to endure on top of sleep deprivation. Levi slid into his dragon form, already tense and low to the ground when he emerged, tail lashing sideways like a nervous cat and startling a jump from him when it hit one of Erwin's back tires. The detective reached out and ran a calming hand along one hard shoulder. Levi's attention was definitely focused on Nanaba and Moblit, who stood as still as statues by their respective humans and tried not to make any threatening eye contact while the drake's nostrils flared, taking them in. 

“Are you okay?” Erwin asked him after a moment. 

Levi opened his wings a fraction, then closed them again in a gesture that read remarkably like a shrug. 

“Alright. I'll get you buckled in and then you can drive.”

“Yours is an underwing fit,” Hanji told them as they shuffled forward to hand the saddle off to Erwin. “Most people ride overwing, which puts their weight at the front edge of the shoulders right between the wings. This is alright for short distances and dressage, where the aim is to sit high in the saddle where your movements can be observed alongside the dragon’s. However, it can be tiring for endurance, as it puts a lot of extra pressure on the muscles that power the wings, not to mention the vertebra of the neck. Endurance riders prefer to fly underwing where their weight is more ergonomic for the dragon, though you will have to be careful that the tops of your thighs don't impede Levi’s movements.”

Erwin nodded, working out which part of the saddle was the narrower front end while Hanji leaned up to spread a layer of quilted padding in their racing colors across the space just behind Levi's wings. They were careful not to touch him directly as they strapped the pad into place for Erwin, giving the detective a target for the saddle. As Erwin lay the pieces across Levi's back, he could tell immediately that this was something made for him. It conformed to the unique curvature of the dragon’s spine like an extension of his body and Erwin couldn't help but run a hand over it before he moved to work out the straps. 

“That one goes straight down,” Hanji advised them helpfully. “That buckle will go through--yes.” 

But they didn't have any suggestions to make for the rest of it, which was the same incomprehensible mess to them as it was to Erwin. He fiddled with it while Hanji studied the  _ supposedly _ user-friendly diagram they'd been given. 

“It looked easier to understand before I saw the saddle on him,” the doctor muttered. “How is  _ that  _ sensible?”

Erwin shrugged from his position up by Levi's chest where he was sure those straps were supposed to loop around somehow to prevent the saddle from rolling sideways with the muscles behind Levi’s wings, but there wasn't enough slack to bring them around and it had him stumped.

“Maybe if you draw them up under the joint of his wing,” Mike suggested, though he was far from confident. 

Hanji made a face. “It would interfere with the movement.”

“Maybe. Maybe it will surprise you, though.”

The doctor looked like they doubted that, but they shrugged. “I don’t have a better idea.”

The straps did seem secure that way, but there was a lot of extra slack. Erwin supposed it wasn’t unlikely they’d include a few extra inches of wiggle room, but they had quite a bit more left over than that and he had the creeping suspicion that it wasn’t right. “Does that feel okay?” he asked the dragon. 

Levi looked at him like he was trying to communicate how very little he knew about saddles. 

Hanji scratched unhappily at their head. “Try mounting,” they suggested, “but don’t take off, yet. If it isn’t secure we don’t want to find that out from a high altitude.”

The saddle did not include anything that looked like a traditional stirrup. Such a thing would have allowed his legs to dangle too freely when the most aerodynamic position for them was tucked up closely to Levi’s sides. There was another series of straps instead--something like a sling for the foot and shin. It looked like it would hold Erwin’s legs at a fairly natural angle--good for long flights where it was important to maintain a moderate speed without forcing his body to bend forward. Such a low position would have been ideal for speed racing but for long days in the saddle it would lead to stiffness and back problems within hours. Erwin studied the configuration, but it did not offer an intuitive way to step up and get a leg over the drake’s back. 

Levi seemed to gather what the problem was because he glanced back over his shoulder at Erwin and bent his front legs to put the saddle at a more manageable height, lifting the edge of a wing to avoid causing the detective any additional head trauma. Erwin still had to do a little hoisting, using the short leather bar that ran across the pommel to pull himself over Levi’s body. Once he was up, he breathed out heavily. 

“Surely there’s a better way to do that.”

“There is. You can still put your feet in the stirrup,” Mike told him helpfully, only  _ after _ they’d all watched Erwin struggle his way fully onto Levi’s back. “You just need to use more of your shin to push yourself up than your foot.”

“Thank you, Mike.”

“I was going to let him figure it out for himself,” Nanaba said. “We should have gotten it on video.”

“It didn’t look very steady when you pulled yourself up,” Hanji observed, waving for Mike and Nanaba to quit teasing the detective. “Did you feel it slide, Erwin?”

“It did, quite a bit.” 

The doctor made an unhappy sound. “We don’t want that. Would you spread your wings for me, Levi?”

Erwin remained upright for all of four seconds. As soon as the drake’s wings unfolded, he was done, lurching abruptly sideways and landing in a painful heap on the gravel drive. Levi’s sides heaved, and no sound came out except several abbreviated huffs of air, but it was clear the drake was laughing at him. 

Hanji’s brave attempt at remaining stoic in the face of Erwin’s graceless spill didn’t entirely go well. “It doesn’t fit that way, evidently,” they noted, trying to control the expression on their face as the others howled unapologetically behind them. Nanaba actually had to sit down on the stairs and put her head between her knees. 

_ “Evidently,” _ Erwin agreed, raising his arm to look at his scuffed up elbow. “When you’re done laughing at my pain, Levi, I will need to unbuckle those straps.”

It only made Nanaba laugh harder, but Levi gave a final snort and stretched his neck out to lick contritely at the uneven lines of torn skin, moved by the sight of Erwin’s blood to try and clean him up.

“Is this sanitary?” 

Levi’s dark tongue didn’t exactly feel pleasant running up his open wound, but Erwin held very still for at least a couple more passes, allowing the drake his mother henning rather than risk offending any more obscure dragon cultural details.

But Moblit only shrugged and offered him an honest, “Probably not.” 

“His mouth is cleaner than a human’s,” Hanji countered. “Better him than me or Mike.”

Erwin let his arm fall before Levi could get any more dragon saliva into his bloodstream--something the drake did not appreciate judging by the way he attempted to nudge the limb aside so he could continue administering his interpretation of first-aid treatment. “How about nobody licks it,” Erwin suggested, catching a handhold around the hinge of Levi’s heavy jaw and pulling his head away. He ignored the low, unhappy growl he got in exchange, but no further attempts were made on his forearm. “And we use peroxide instead.”

“I’ll go and get the first aid kit,” Mike offered. He had to stop laughing first, which took a minute. “We’ll leave yours alone since you’re probably going to need it.” 

In the meantime, it was back to messing around with the straps. Erwin corrected the wildly twisted saddle and tightened the girth by one hole, trying different angles until he finally worked out that the two extra straps were meant to loop _under_ the juncture of Levi’s foreleg rather than beneath the wing. He knew as soon as he had it that the configuration was correct, though there was still a little extra slack in the strap when he drew it up to the corresponding buckle. A little more experimenting had him settling that problem as well, drawing it across Levi’s chest to the opposite buckle in an x. It was really the ideal shape, allowing the straps to harness Levi’s chest fairly tightly without cutting into the more delicate scales just behind his forelegs and damaging them with repeated movement. The x-shape allowed the most freedom of movement while still holding the saddle in a position that didn’t slide more than an inch in either direction when Erwin tested it. As soon as his forearm had all the necessary peroxide poured over it, the detective shook off the extra droplets and climbed into a much safer saddle. 

It seemed so obvious once it was complete. He could probably consider it a practical demonstration of what sleep deprivation did to a person’s brain. 

“Pulling up on the extra slack here will tighten the sling,” Mike advised, more helpful now that Erwin’s safety was a legitimate concern. He stepped forward to free the small piece of leather from the strap it had twisted itself around in all the excitement, pulling up on it and taking some of the slack out of the straps around Erwin’s shins. This drew his leg up closer to Levi’s side, forcing his knee to bend and putting him in a much more aerodynamic position. “You can release it by pulling down on the buckle and flexing your leg. Your knees will get sore if you leave them too high, but you’ll need to tighten the slings if you plan on moving very fast. Otherwise, your heels will move too freely and they’ll bruise Levi--or the wind will catch them and knock you off, whichever happens first.”

“While you two are flying, we will work on loading everything into the saddlebags,” Hanji told them. “We’ll start completely full and start eliminating from there if necessary. With luck, Levi can take all of it, but if he can’t, we’ll start pulling from the nonessentials.”

“Keep your body low for take-off, because it won’t be smooth,” Mike suggested. “That first rush of air will knock you right out of the saddle if you let it and I assure you it hurts a lot.”

Nanaba smirked over some memory that Erwin would have to remind her to tell him about at some later date. Judging by her amusement over it, he wouldn’t have any difficulty talking her into it. 

“Fly hard,” Hanji told Levi. “We don’t have all day to simulate the slower pace you’ll keep throughout the actual race, so we’ll have to make up for it with speed. Fly as hard and fast as you can until--” they glanced at their watch. “Ten, maybe. That’s an hour of flight. Erwin will signal you when the time is up, but if you start tiring before then, turn back. We need you fairly fresh to test the saddle bags.”

The doctor backed away, giving the drake room to maneuver. That time, Erwin did not slide off. The saddle did not budge, nestled securely against Levi’s spine where it was meant to stay. He felt the small shiver of anticipation run through the body beneath his as the dark wings unfolded, and he leaned over the pommel as Mike suggested, gripping the saddle as hard as he could because he wasn’t sure what kind of a handhold he was about to need. He could feel Levi’s muscles coil, his limbs bending as the energy built in him. And then, suddenly, they were airborne. 

Mike’s advice had been worth its weight in gold. Erwin ducked his head against the tearing fingers of wind that tried to get under him and peel him off of Levi. It was like punching through a hurricane’s eye wall, or something close, and Erwin had no doubt that the force could have scraped him effortlessly from the saddle had it been given any leverage. 

The thing was, it didn’t let up a whole lot once they were in the air, either. Levi could  _ move.  _ There was no telling how fast they were going, only that Erwin could not physically see any of it happening. Opening his eyes was impossible unless he looked straight down, which only gave him vague impressions of height and trees whipping beneath them in a sickening smear of green. The drake definitely heard Hanji’s instructions, then. He’d opened himself up completely, flying all out from take-off like nothing in the world could catch them. Erwin couldn’t imagine anyone maintaining such speed for an hour. 

And yet, Levi did. He did it without slowing or straining, without showing any sign of weakening despite his obvious sleep deprivation and mental exhaustion. The whole hour was wind and speed, blurs of violent motion and the powerful workings of muscle between Erwin’s thighs. The detective had no idea where they’d gone because he hadn’t been able to see any of it--had barely been able to keep an eye on his watch through the tiny slits of vision his burning eyes could manage. Most of the time, he had to keep them closed completely against the wind. 

Unsure of what signal to give Levi, as they hadn’t worked one out beforehand, Erwin tried tensing his legs in the saddle only to realize that they had been tense the entire time and had long since started shaking with the effort of holding on. Barely daring to forfeit any grip he had on the dragon, Erwin let go with one hand and reached forward, tapping Levi twice between his sharp shoulders with the full palm of his hand and hoping he got the message across because twice was all he was willing to do. 

Almost instantly, their pace slowed. 

Levi’s wings stilled for a moment, letting their momentum carry them forward several yards before sweeping downwards again, turning the hurricane to a gentle gale. Cautiously, Erwin pushed himself upright, realizing that his back was, in fact, very stiff. Blinking residual moisture from his eyes, he was able to get his first real look at the terrain below them, the craggy northern section of the preserve rising almost abruptly from the surrounding land with its wide, gnarled band of river twisting through it. He’d never seen the preserve from such a magnificent angle. He’d been coming up north since he was a teenager and thought he knew this country well. By comparison to this, all he’d been doing then was drowning in trees. 

“You guys tore out of here like a rocket,” Mike observed as they landed. “I’ve never seen any living thing move that fast.”

“He didn’t slow down, either,” Erwin replied, feeling his back throb its sulky agreement. “It was the same pace for the full hour. You’re incredible.” That last was for Levi.

The scales along the drake’s jaw lifted proudly. 

“You had no issue with Erwin’s weight, then, I assume?” Hanji asked him, peering closely at each portion of his body in turn as they made a visual assessment of their own. Levi shook his head, turning to watch Erwin’s stiff dismount. “Excellent. We’ll have an early lunch and let you rest up, then start you on the full saddle bags.”

Levi took that as his cue to shift out of his dragon form, catching the saddle by the front, x-shaped straps before the fine leather hit the ground. Erwin took it by the pommel and the back edge and lifted it easily over his head. 

“You didn’t say much up there,” the drake noted smugly. 

“A safety precaution. I didn’t want to swallow my tongue.” 

Erwin wondered if he looked as horribly windblown as he felt. He raised his fingers to his stinging cheek, cringing as the contact burned them. He’d seen something for his face--remembering it because it looked like the sort of thing a bank robber might wear--but had thought it was for the cold. Trying to comb his hair back into some semblance of order put a light in Levi’s eyes that Erwin thought was worth the experience of having it mussed up in the first place. 

The rest of the afternoon continued in a similar vein. After lunch it was back to the air, fully loaded saddle bags in tow. Levi flew hard until Erwin felt his rhythm change beneath him, his muscles shifting into a different pattern of movement as Levi's smooth, powerful strokes faltered. He glanced at his watch,  _ forty-eight minutes,  _ and reached up to signal him down. From there, they began sacrificing nonessentials--something Levi seemed to take as a personal failing. 

“I think it would be too frightening if you were that damn accomplished,” Nanaba told him over dinner. “You're already borderline with all that other shit you can do. Don't be greedy.”

They ate out front, surrounded by the items they were still sorting through and sitting wherever they found space. Levi wanted to go up one more time, but it was dark and he was clearly spent. Erwin didn't tell him so, but he doubted Levi could carry the  _ saddle _ up, much less Erwin and the bags. He simply shook his head when the matter arose. “Rest is just as important in a race like this as the racing itself,” he said. “One hour of sleep is worth more right now than one more hour of flight.”

“Erwin is correct,” Hanji agreed. “Your endurance is impressive, Levi, but you're going to fall out of the air.”

“I won't be able to sleep anyway,” the drake assured them. “I'd rather not waste our time staring at the ceiling.”

“I'll get you to sleep,” Erwin promised. Firmly.

“You can’t force that,” the drake insisted. “Sleep isn’t something you can charm with your pretty blue eyes.”

“I can be pretty persuasive.”

Moblit cleared his throat softly. “I brought some tea to drink while we’re here. You can have it if you like. Drinking something warm helps me sleep when I can’t.”

Levi opened his mouth to reply, but Hanji was already jumping up, club sandwich in one hand, to go to their car. “I'll get it before we forget!” 

“It will be easier just to accept the tea.” There were years of experience behind Moblit’s statement. Now that Hanji was involved, Levi would be taking the tea. He could protest, he could try to casually leave it behind, but in conclusion the tea would be entering his possession.  

The drake swallowed, his expression bewildered. “Thank you.”

“It’s really no problem.”

“We have Hanji and Moblit in one of the guest rooms, but Levi won’t feel entirely comfortable in our house,” Mike said. “Encountering Nanaba and Moblit out here is one thing, but sleeping under the same roof is another. It takes a long time to feel that at ease. Many years of friendship. You’ll both get a better night’s sleep using one of the empty territories on the preserve.”

There was a dangerous sort of glint in Nanaba’s eye when she added, “Luckily, we have just the empty territory in mind.”


	28. Wings of Freedom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The final day and the final night before the Idrarod, mercifully abridged.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've given up on summaries I don't know if that's obvious. The worst part about writing a long fic hasn't been writing the long fic. It's the blank title and summary boxes. If you got an email that says "annotated" instead of "abridged" in the summary you never got that email and if you tell anyone I'm saying I was hacked.
> 
> In any case, the writing hermitage was moderately successful. I have 8 chapters and 23,000 words of an original thing, which is more original thing than I've had in years, but now I've skipped a few weeks of WT and it's time to get back on top of the dragons. Or under them, I guess, if you're Mike.

The territory Nanaba presented to them had last belonged to Dorian. It hadn't been cleared for a new resident, so all of his furniture remained as he left it, his bed neatly made and a half-finished mug of black coffee molding quietly on the countertop by the sink. It was eerie, stepping into a place that had been suddenly and unwillingly abandoned. It was a tidy little house except for the coffee, built in the mountain cottage style with exposed beams and towering living room windows. Levi poked around quietly, examining things, swiping his finger along the faintly dusty shelves. His expression was sour.

“It reeks of him in here.”

Erwin breathed in, but he didn’t smell anything apart from a vague house scent and uncirculated air. He tried to imagine that fierce, wickedly beautiful drake living in a bright, sunny home filled with faded quilts and he wouldn’t have placed Dorian here, but he must have fit. Levi watered a drooping ficus and tipped the moldy coffee into the sink, apparently unable to deal with letting that stay in the house with him overnight. Erwin leaned against a cabinet and watched him scrub the well-used cup with such intent focus that he could only be brooding about Dorian. When he spoke, though, the direction of his thoughts was unexpected.

“I can see you living here,” the drake mused. “If Dorian had won and he’d killed me, I can see you happy. And alive.”

“I wouldn’t have considered him,” Erwin assured Levi. “You and I happened unexpectedly, without my intention. Otherwise I never would have--”

“You have some pretty stupid ideas about that.” Levi turned the mug over the drying rack and reached for the folded hand towel by the sink. “Even the first day I woke up I was less worried about being owned by you than being _humanely_ killed. I never believed you would try the first.”

“You had a lot to worry about where I was concerned. I can't imagine it would have been at the top of the list.”

“That doesn't mean I didn't notice how different you were from the men I grew up with. I just wanted you to know before we got caught up in everything else. You can sign whatever they put in front of you and I still won't be yours. Not in the way they want.”

Erwin felt his mouth twitch up at the corners. “It would be a good idea to read it before I put my name on anything.”

“I know you intend to sign something if we survive--you’ll have to if you want to keep me at all--but I don't want you making it matter more than it does.” Levi pushed off the counter and came to stand in front of Erwin, his expression troubled. “We've already let the government stand on our front porch. They can't share the house with us too.”

“I don't intend to let them anywhere near it.” Erwin paused, though, reconsidering. “Well. Not after the race.” They'd probably crawl all over the property while they were gone--certainly the exterior. The agency could probably dredge up some line of policy that allowed them to search the house itself as well. Erwin would enter the race under his true name and that would serve as the reason they were absent when the DCA came calling. It wasn't obstruction, simply a prior engagement that they _had_ to’ve been planning well in advance of the DCA’s arrival considering the timing of registration. Hanji’s patient had been a godsend in that respect. Erwin would have to send them a heartfelt thank-you as soon as it was safe for him to do so.

Dorian’s cabin only had the one bedroom, situated towards the front in a raised loft that overlooked the living room on one side and a small strip of the entryway on the other. Levi took one look and said firmly, “You're not sleeping there.”

Erwin had to agree that it wasn’t the most respectful thing to do, but he wanted Levi as alert and even-tempered as he could be when they entered the racing grounds with all those other dragons. They hadn’t gotten around to testing his tolerance of a crowd and if they had to go in blind, they’d be well-rested when they did so.

“I was going to suggest we change the sheets.”

“It wouldn't matter,” Levi insisted, already turning to go. “He wasn’t neutered, either.”

Erwin had no idea how that played into it. Perhaps it made the pheromones stronger. Perhaps the mattress had been absorbing them for many years as Dorian slept, permanently marking it as his own. Perhaps there were remnants of other, more personal scents that made Levi’s nose turn up that way. In either case, he clearly wouldn’t be comfortable sleeping there.

“Was the sofa acceptable?”

The drake appeared to be thinking, unhappy. “If we put a couple of sheets over it.”

The chest at the foot of Dorian’s bed had a set of extra sheets and some quilts, which would be the specified thickness if they folded them. Back down in the living room, Levi subjected everything to a thorough and systematic sniff-test, pillowcases included, before he gave a reluctant nod.

“I guess you won’t let me wash them.”

Erwin tossed him one end to fold, waiting for the dragon to match his ends up. “They smell like laundry detergent. They’ve already been cleaned.”

“Yes, but I didn’t supervise the cleaning, so I can’t say what happened to them after that. And they still smell vaguely like him.”

“They’ll just pick his scent back up from the sofa.”

“We could wash the sofa.”

Erwin paused and gave him a look.

“You can wash everything else,” the drake said logically, but Erwin simply shook his head and pressed the ends of a spare quilt into the gap between the sofa and the cushion. “We have time for a shower, at least.”

Erwin wouldn’t argue with him on that point. They used the one in Dorian’s loft, which was blessedly spotless, and scrubbed soap over each other with a minimal amount of lingering. Levi was still rubbing at his hair with a towel as they descended the stairs, sluggish with exhaustion. The hot water had encouraged more cooperation from the drake than words could have done, sucking the energy out of him and preparing him for sleep. Once the lights were out, it took some deliberate effort on his part to roll over Erwin rather than simply flop down on top of him.

“I want the back,” he muttered, burrowing so far down between the sofa and Erwin that he risked being consumed by the cushions. He hooked his leg over the detective’s, tucking himself along Erwin’s side and finding a comfortable spot for his arm. He dragged the quilt up over his head and disappeared.

Then pushed the quilt off.

Then pulled it back up.

Then pushed it off.

Levi wiggled up to shove his chilly nose into Erwin’s neck. He breathed in deeply and for a time, he settled.

Erwin was just allowing himself to relax when the drake slithered back down to his starting position, though he appeared to be attempting to wedge his face into Erwin’s armpit.

“Levi …”

“He’s all up my nose,” Levi growled. “This sofa is unacceptable.”

“You’ve gone to sleep smelling other dragons,” the detective told him. “Dozens of times.”

“You had me scruffed.”

Erwin could practically feel the realization when it hit Levi. “Things were a little different then,” he was quick to say. At the time, they hadn’t been a powder keg of sexual potential. There hadn’t been much risk of escalation. Now, there was only the finest of lines remaining between what they were and what they were not. “We want you to be asleep, not sexually frustrated.”

“I think I’m too tired to get it up. Keep it very light and my dick won’t even notice.”

 _Erwin’s_ dick was trying to notice. It was trying to notice that Levi still preferred to sleep in the nude and that there was one spot along the outside of his thigh that was warmer than the rest, right where the drake’s leg bent to twine possessively around his own. Levi pressed his lips to Erwin’s side and it was close enough to his underarm that his skin twitched--almost, but not quite tickled. “I can sense your pheromones when we’re this close, but I don’t know what they mean. Yours are different from a dragon’s. I can tell when they change, but I don’t know why.” He could obviously make an educated guess, though. Erwin heard the interest in his tone.

“Those are my preparing to sleep pheromones,” Erwin answered easily, freeing his arm from beneath Levi so he could reach the drake’s neck. A little more mutual adjusting found them in a position where nothing was likely to fall asleep before they did. “Are you comfortable?”

“Are you?”

There was more to the question than the words themselves implied.

“I’m worn out, too,” Erwin told him. “Too worn out to experience much else.”

“Go ahead, then.”

Levi hadn’t been terribly tense, but the body held some degree of tension just by being present and aware. It was incredible how much, how great the difference was when the drake melted against Erwin with a quiet sigh. He went quickly, his worried mind unable to challenge both the exhaustion and the incredible relaxation that coursed through him. The room was utterly black, but Levi’s breathing signalled the change. Erwin continued for a little while longer, tracing the small strip of smooth skin until he was sure that ending it wouldn’t disturb the drake’s sleep. Only then did he close his eyes.

 

Both of them slept in the next morning. Erwin’s eyes cracked open around dawn, when the sky was just lightening, but they still ached for sleep and Levi hadn’t moved an inch from the position Erwin had left him in, so completely dead to the world that he clearly needed the rest. It hadn’t been difficult to go back to sleep himself, convinced that it was only habit that had woken him.

Luckily, everyone slept in to some degree that morning, trickling slowly into consciousness beginning with Hanji, who brought chicken biscuits and news.

“I went by your house this morning. There was a DCA notice posted to your door. I didn’t touch it,” they added when Erwin looked up sharply. They sat on a gently worn ottoman rather than the chair it belonged to, eating their own breakfast between words. “I wasn’t followed back here, either, but it won’t take much research for them to guess that this is where you came. I think we should stage today’s training out here on the preserve in case they catch on faster than we’d like.”

Erwin nodded, but he had to swallow before he spoke. “I’ll text Mike and Nanaba and let them know to come to us.”

“Done,” Hanji said simply. “Moblit took them the same breakfast and the same news.”

“You’re perfect in every way, Hanji. You’re sure you weren’t followed?”

“Not unless they’ve developed cloaking devices for their vehicles. And honestly, who would do that? Can you imagine trying to deal with motorists that can’t see you? It’s bad enough when they can.”

Mike and Nanaba left Mr. Zacharius to hold down the fort at the administration building. He would let them know if anyone too smartly dressed arrived and asked for Erwin Smith. _I haven’t seen Erwin Smith in weeks,_ the old man had insisted, demonstrating how wide and guileless his eyes could become. If Erwin hadn’t been standing right in front of him he’d have believed it himself.

The day proceeded in a similar vein as the first. Hanji ran a weight test while Levi was still fresh and dubbed the results satisfactory. Erwin and Levi would get to keep their toothbrushes, but the paste would freeze so they’d been given a tin of baking soda instead. Levi’s relief was palpable. There was still enough morning left afterwards to go through all the equipment and make sure they both knew how to use everything. Mike had them pitch the tent and take it down twice, pausing only to remove a tick from Erwin’s forearm with the needle-nosed pliers on their new multitool.

“If you notice a rash after about a week, you’re probably going to die,” Mike warned him cheerfully.

“You won’t _die,”_ Hanji protested. “Transmission of tick-borne disease takes over a day, anyway, unless Mike made him vomit into your blood.”

“I made sure he vomited,” Mike teased. “Erwin is definitely going to die.”

“You won’t die, Erwin.” The doctor sighed, running on too little sleep to see the humor. They’d been up early if they’d gone to Erwin’s house and back that morning, and Moblit was looking at them like he knew how late they’d been up. “Most likely.”

Lunch was followed by more weight tests--or something they were all calling a weight test even though it looked suspiciously like a poorly-disguised coffee run. Nanaba had suggested it. There was a Starbucks in the dragon-friendly village just east of the preserve that Levi could technically fly right up to in his dragon form. The village was as loose about dragon-form regulations as the city was strict, commonly turning a blind eye if there was a law about it at all. Still, they must not have seen a dragon walk someone through a drive-through very often because the person who pulled up behind them actually leaned out of the window to take a picture using their phone. The teenager at the pickup window paused as he turned, though it was worse seeing him try to pretend that everything was perfectly normal as he passed a tray full of drinks up to Erwin and Levi tried to wind his head around so he could peer into the building. The boy almost forgot to take their payment.

Dinner was out on the preserve, at Dorian’s. The DCA still hadn’t made its appearance and they weren’t sure if it was intentional or if they really were that slow at rounding up Erwin’s closest associates. Either way, no one was complaining.

“I’d have expected more haste from them,” Hanji called from the table where they were entertaining Auruo and Petra with a presentation on tea. Levi seemed to be the only one attentively listening, looking over Petra’s rumpled hair at the images they were pulling up on their tablet. Small as the house was, the table was reasonably large, furnished with long benches rather than chairs. Most everyone had gravitated there, following Mike into the kitchen where he had taken charge of dinner, Nanaba sitting on the counter beside him and occasionally reaching over to give something a halfhearted stir so he could step away to work on another part.

“Well, they can’t know yet where Erwin intends to go.” Nanaba paused, though, leaning forward to look at Hanji around the fragrant steam coming off some kind of Thai curry dish. “They can’t, can they? Is there any way for them to know?”

But it was Mike who shrugged. “Only Hanji’s client knows, as far as I can tell. And the people at the outfitters place. Both parties are useless to the DCA unless they know to go and ask.”

“They won’t catch on before we’re gone.” Erwin was fairly certain of that. “Even if they do, they have the whole preserve to search. You can say we were doing wilderness camping and you don’t know where we’ve gone.”

“We’d still have to lie to them about the race,” Nanaba pointed out. “Otherwise, they’ll be there tomorrow, looking for you.”

“Let me handle that bit,” Mike said. “I can get away with a lie by omission more easily than you could. Depending on how they ask their questions, I think we could get away with enough.”

“It’s still a federal agency,” the dragon insisted. “You have to be careful in how you go about it.”

Erwin listened to them work out what they would say. Most of it revolved around being unavailable and busy, buying Erwin and Levi time to get themselves entered into the race and settled. The DCA could seize them at any time before the race began, but once the starting gun fired, there was to be no outside interference unless someone activated their emergency beacon, which Erwin and Levi would be extra careful not to do. To challenge that protocol, the DCA would be challenging another branch of the federal government. They may be willing to open that can of worms, but Erwin suspected that even Levi would not be worth it to them. He glanced over to assess how quickly Levi was becoming attached to the children, only to find with a little twist of anxiety that the drake’s chin was resting on the top of Petra’s head, his arms wrapped around her and folded on the table in front. It was casually protective, a simple assurance that she would not tumble from his lap, and the gesture was so effortlessly parental that it made Erwin nervous.

“Have you bonded with those kids?” Erwin asked Nanaba abruptly.

She shrugged. “Can’t. I wish we could, but raising any of the younglings full-time would make it difficult to help the rest. We’ve tried placing them with others, but it hasn’t taken. Actually … don’t be angry.”

“They’ve bonded to Levi.”

“They took an immediate shine to him, but I don’t think they’ve had enough time to bond. Still, it’s close enough that I think it could be preventing them from bonding to other potential parents. They keep asking to see him.” Nanaba slid a certain, careful look towards Erwin. “You too.”

“It’s why we haven’t let them interact much with you over the past couple of days,” Mike said. “If they bond to you and you die, they’ll be devastated.”

Erwin favored his friend with a flat look and a dry, “Thank you, Mike,” before the full weight of what they were saying hit him. “You’re going to ask us to take them if we come back.”

“That’s thinking too far ahead,” Nanaba told him. “We aren’t trying to set you up tonight. We just didn’t want to ask Mr. Zacharius to keep them past his bedtime. We’re going to keep trying while you’re gone. A month is a long time, so they may well bond to someone else. We also realize that it’s not guaranteed that you and Levi will mate. You learn a lot about someone on a race like this one, I’ll bet.”

“But if everything works out and you both decide you want them, they would bond to you in a heartbeat,” Mike finished.

“I’m sorry, Erwin. If we’d known when we first introduced you that it was really that likely, we wouldn’t have allowed it.”

“I know,” Erwin assured them both. “I don’t think you’d willingly foist younglings onto anyone, much less a couple of dead men. You care too much about all four of us to do that.” He watched Levi, though, as the drake reached out across the table to gently lay his hand over Auruo’s to prevent him from tapping out any more exotic rhythms on the wood with the handle of his fork. His instincts were identical to Nanaba’s, reacting naturally to Auruo without ever breaking eye contact with Moblit, who had returned from a long disappearance with a new topic of conversation, by the looks of it. Auruo stuck his tongue out at Levi, who turned and said something to him that made him get up and come straight over to Erwin.

“Levi said you needed my help over here.”

Incredible. Levi had never seen a youngling before that month and he was already using the _go see if daddy needs help_ tactic to interrupt destructive boredom. When exactly, Erwin wondered, had he become the daddy in that scenario. He stared down at Auruo’s earnest expression, bewildered.

Mike and Nanaba had both frozen, watching Erwin flounder like they wanted to see if he would manage not to drown, the bastards. _“Did_ he?” the detective asked, thinking quickly. There wasn’t much preparation left with the food itself except make sure that nothing burned. The rice was on and Auruo wasn’t going anywhere near the stove until Erwin knew him better. He wouldn’t readily burn, but the house might. The stack of plates on the opposite counter looked promising. “We are actually one man short. Have you set a table before?”

The youngling shook his head eagerly.

“Okay, come here.” Erwin lifted the boy and transferred him over to one hip so he could see the countertop better. “Plates go into the center,” he began, pulling one from the top of the stack and setting it down in front of them. “Fork goes on the left with the napkin. Knife goes on the right, blade facing in, then the spoon.”

“Oh shit,” Nanaba muttered. “I always put the spoon on the other side.”

Mike elbowed her.

Auruo set off as soon as Erwin put him down, taking on the task with an air of great importance and explaining to Petra how it was done. She could sit still for longer than the boy could, but she was still ready to be up and moving, sliding from Levi’s lap to get more plates. All the adult heads at the table leaned a little closer together and Erwin thought they looked suspiciously into whatever it was they were discussing. An unsupervised Hanji and Moblit were almost as bad as Nanaba where unsolicited sexual advice was concerned.

“Do you think that conversation is G-rated?” Erwin asked his friends, hoping the tiny dragons were too occupied with their challenge to learn anything they shouldn’t.

Nanaba studied the others for all of one moment before deciding, “Absolutely not.”

“Leave them to it,” Mike suggested. “They could be discussing your wedding night.”

“If we have one of those at all, it’s not happening until we get back,” Erwin informed them. He sounded prim, even to his own ears, and when they both looked at him, he shook his head, casually turning his shoulder so that Levi wouldn’t catch his lips move if he happened to turn around. “He’s only ever been bred. Indirectly. I don’t think he’s really even been … handled.”

Nanaba’s expression had gone a little grim. “Trust me, Erwin, for someone in his position, that can only be a blessing.”

“That isn’t what I’m saying. I just mean that I want it to be--clean. Not on the ground--in a proper bed with central heating.”

“Holy shit, that’s adorable.”

“You could wash up in a brisk mountain stream,” Mike suggested gruffly. “You could romantically get hypothermia together.”

“Yeah,” Nanaba mused. “He’s surprisingly not rugged, isn’t he? Sometimes, though, people’s kinks are the opposite of their average goings-on. He may be into messy outdoor sex. You want me to ask him?”

_“No!”_

By unanimous agreement, they all paused while the kids came to collect more plates. They were getting bolder with them, carrying two and three at a time, one in each hand or stacked together. They were experimenting.

“I guess he probably wasn’t ready to hear about assholes, then,” Nanaba admitted. “Not without more of an introduction. He was probably confused.”

“He was,” Erwin snapped.

“Please stop discussing my asshole with everyone in our friend group,” Mike sighed.

Feeling like a little retaliation was in order for the romantic hypothermia comment, Erwin shook his head. “There’s nothing left that we all don’t know.”

“You don't know about our growing collection of custom made silicone dragon penises. Mike likes to be--” the other man reached over and quickly covered Nanaba’s mouth with his hand, but Erwin could clearly hear her say _knotted._

“I stand corrected, then.”

Mike was pink enough around the ears that Erwin took some pity on the man and changed the subject.

Dinner was a wild affair. Erwin’s friends were a rowdy bunch, made rowdier by the presence of two younglings who were just learning by example how to shout at each other over the dinner table. There were about three conversations happening at once, and participation in more than one simultaneously was not uncommon. At one point, Erwin looked over and found Petra attempting to feed Levi using the airplane fork method, which she had learned in the nursery where the younger dragons were housed. The drake’s eyes swiveled over to meet Erwin’s, clearly begging for mercy, but Erwin only took out his phone and snapped a picture to make into his wallpaper. He would make sure he came back from the Idrarod just so he could enjoy the look on Levi’s face every time he pulled his phone out and swiped his thumb across the lock screen.

“I have one last thing for you guys,” Hanji told them as they were cleaning up. “I wanted to save them until you could model for us.” With a wicked gleam in their eye, they went to the living room, where several unmarked boxes were stacked up on the hearth. That must have been where Moblit disappeared to while they were making dinner.

“Our racing colors?” Erwin guessed.

“I added something to them,” Hanji said eagerly, waving for the others to go back into the kitchen. “Go away, they’re modeling the uniforms, not their private parts.”

“Aw _man,”_ Nanaba protested dramatically, but she ushered the younglings back inside with the promise of loading the dishwasher.

Erwin sat down in the chair by the fireplace and reached for the largest of his own boxes, which had all been identified by a rough ‘E’ scratched across the lid in Hanji’s handwriting. Across from him, Levi watched, uncertain.

“You have a set, too,” Hanji said, pushing the mid-sized box with his own ‘L’ on it into Levi’s lap in a way that did not require any interpretation. “This one has the actual leathers. Erwin has the parka.”

The coat that came out of the box was absolutely enormous. For a moment, Erwin thought they’d gotten the size wrong, but no, it was for him. The bulk of it was alarming, bringing home the exact extent to which they would be freezing their asses off. It looked like it had been specially designed for the arctic, fur-lined and warm with a waterproof outer layer that would knock both the wind and the snow away from him and absorb heat from any sunlight they happened to encounter along the way. Levi paused over his own box to stare, his hands just inside the tissue paper that lay folded over his set of leathers.

“Turn it around,” Hanji urged.

That was what they had added. It hadn’t been in their plans, but some racers had a symbol sewn into the backs of their clothing to more easily identify them amongst other riders with similar color patterns. Theirs was a pair of crossed wings, one white and one dark blue, almost black, superimposed across a gray shield. Erwin stared, just as Levi had.

“While I was discussing it with Moblit, I got to calling it the wings of freedom,” Hanji laughed. “Get it? Because you’re flying. For your freedom. It’s visual humor.”

Neither Erwin or Levi were laughing. They simply looked at it as Erwin lay the coat slowly over his knees, face down, and ran his hand over the embroidery. It was beautiful, exceptionally well-done.

“We don’t have to call it that,” Hanji said quickly, not sure how to interpret their silence. “It was that or _the logo_ so it just kind of …”

“No, it’s perfect,” Erwin said, looking over to find Levi scowling in that way that meant he’d been deeply moved. “All of it. Thank you.”

“I’m glad you like it, because they burned it into the backs of the racing leathers as well.” Hanji gestured for Levi to keep unwrapping, and he seemed to remember that he had something in his own lap to look at. It was in two pieces rather than a jumpsuit, with two strange-looking layers at the bottom along with four buckles wrapped tightly in the same material. The leather had been dyed a dark green, the wings black on this piece where they had simply been burned in like Hanji said. The pants had matching buckles along the waist, like the top and bottom were meant to snap together. They tapered off towards the bottom, using a series of more buckles down the legs to tighten them and press the leather close to their skin.

“There are liners in the smallest box. They also came with a couple of attachments for the belt and the buckles--little pouches and things for your utility knife and multitool and the snow axe. You’ll need to keep vaseline close, for windburn, and some other stuff. Essentially, you’ll have a utility belt. Plus some functional thigh ornaments. Nothing can go on Levi’s because you would lose it when he makes the transformation. Anything that isn’t leather, or between the leather and his skin. A liner would change with him, and the buckles because they’ve been wrapped tightly, but you’d lose much else. He won’t need to worry about windburn, anyway.”

“What are the buckles for?”

“They make up for the fact that it isn’t a single piece. The extra strip of leather slides down into the waistline of the pants, then you buckle everything together and you won’t get any wind or snow into your clothing. I imagine it also keeps things from riding up or flapping around in-flight. There’s a sash that goes over them, probably for extra protection.”

They each had a pair of heavy black boots--treated leather that tightened using buckles rather than zips or ties, leaving no gap for snow to get into them. They came almost up to the knee and were also fur-lined. Erwin had a set of goggles and a full, executioner-style hood that would make him look like something from a Mary Queen of Scots documentary or a BDSM dungeon, but would keep the wind off his face.

“The liner for the hood doesn’t have a mouth hole, so a lot of people freeball the hood. Hence, the vaseline. I would wear all of it when you get farther north, though, and not only for your lips. You lose most of your heat through your head.”

Hanji had them try most of it on. The leathers were tight, even without their matching liner, hugging their bodies like a second skin. Erwin supposed that would help with the heat loss, but Levi squirmed and grumbled his way into the pants, standing there breathing hard when he finished like he’d run a hundred miles already without stopping. His bare chest heaved, his scarred abdomen swelling into the leather waistband with each inhale.

“These are a nightmare,” he moaned. It took Erwin a moment to reply and when he did, he first had to swallow.

“I completely disagree.”

Levi did not immediately catch his meaning, which was unfortunate because it meant he did not allow any lingering over the view, pulling the top over his head with no idea how that dark leather made him look, accentuating the harshness of his features and turning him into something magnificent and lethal. Then his head pushed through the hole and his hair came out mussed and Erwin had to avert his eyes quickly from the entirety of the sight.

The appreciation was hardly one sided. When their boots were on and they’d buckled themselves in to the best of their ability and the tight girdle of a sash--blue, like the wings--had been snapped over the top, they stood there across from each other and silently questioned how uncertain they really were about whether or not they wanted to mate right there on the living room floor. Levi’s eyes slid unapologetically down the detective’s body, his cheeks pink with something that was not exertion.

“Shit,” he said succinctly.

That pretty much summed it up.

“It all fits so well,” was probably the safest response that Erwin could give. “How did they do all this on such short notice?”

Hanji shrugged. “They’re good, aren’t they?”

“Very.” Levi’s response came out a little rougher than normal, and he closed some of the distance between them without quite touching Erwin, except for his hands, which came to rest on the man’s hips. He looked down between them like he was marveling at the way they looked, so close together and so oddly attired. The others were all gathering in the doorway to stare at them with varying degrees of open-mouthed appreciation, but Levi’s had his back to them and Erwin was frozen in place, waiting to see what the results of this inspection would be.

The drake looked up, his pupils dark and wide, his palms sliding around to Erwin’s lower back and down, over the smooth curve of his ass, made smoother by the material covering him. Levi arched into him, lowering his head again to watch their chests meet, his forehead resting against the material that obviously fascinated him. He took a deep breath.

“You smell like a dead cow.”

“I’m going to need a business card for this place,” Nanaba announced from the doorway.

“There are a couple more things,” Hanji told them eagerly, shooing Erwin and Levi apart so they could crouch in front of the detective with about a hundred thousand straps and things. The knife went around Erwin’s upper thigh with an unapologetic, “Sorry, Erwin, mind your dangly bits,” then the smaller holster for the multi tool and a larger pouch for miscellaneous items, including the small tub of vaseline.

“Don’t use that for lubricant,” Hanji thought to say. “I've included a separate bottle so you're not tempted.”

“We aren't going to be able to get all of our clothes off until we get back,” Erwin pointed out, looking down at himself when Hanji stepped away. They hadn’t put the belt on him yet, but he was starting to feel a little overheated and would protest it if they tried.  

“I should have asked them to include an access flap.” Hanji seemed entirely too serious about that.

“Yeah,” Mike agreed mercilessly. “With a bright yellow button right in the middle of his ass.”

Nanaba’s response was immediate. “I have a feeling that wouldn't ride so well.”

“No, but Erwin would.”

Sometimes Erwin wondered if they deliberately set up crass jokes for each other. He wouldn’t put it past them.

From the midst of their laughter, Auruo used his brand new interrupting skills to speak up and ask them loudly, “What is lubricant?”

Nanaba made a high-pitched noise that sounded like an abruptly stifled laugh.

“It’s something you put on door hinges when they get squeaky,” Erwin answered quickly, knowing that his friends probably wouldn’t bother lying. “I’m going to be using it for my … saddle buckles. They get very stiff.”

“And _squeaky,”_ Nanaba added.

The youngling couldn’t seem to understand why everyone around him howled with laughter, but it was contagious and he ended up smiling through his confusion. It wasn’t a bad way to spend their last night at home--maybe their last night together with these strange, loveable people that were something like family. Despite everything, Erwin was content. He was right where he wanted to be and he dared hope, looking sideways at Levi who watched the children with some quieter amusement playing across his face, that the drake would be inclined to agree.

 

 

* * * * * * * * * * *

 

 

by [anarchyarmin](http://anarchyarmin.tumblr.com/)

by Marie at [seitensarvi](http://seitsensarvi.tumblr.com/)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU BOTH AGAIN FOR THE BEAUTIFUL ARTS. That timing though. Because they kind of go together in a weird, perfect sequence, see? He's even kissing the same hand Levi was just fretfully looking at. =O


	29. On Your Marks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The race begins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gotta post and run. I'm trying to get O2 up this weekend as well.

It seemed to Erwin that everyone came to see them off--more than he ever expected, considering the distance. Following a short debate involving time, safety, and legal concerns (“Hanji, we can’t put eight people in an SUV that seats five, not even if three of you volunteer to hide in the trunk, Erwin and I are police officers for Christ’s sake.”) it was determined that Mike and Nanaba would drive them, and Hanji and Moblit would follow with the younglings. But Erwin’s expectations began and ended there. He had not expected to find Nile waiting for them in the parking lot with Lynette and a police cruiser that had strayed far from its jurisdiction. 

“Shit,” Levi observed, hopping down from Mike’s truck and looking around like he was seeing a brand new world. “Can I get more of these if we live? This is the first time I’ve ever been warm outdoors.”

The arrangement would suit them both, Erwin thought, casting an appreciative eye over the way Levi’s racing colors flattered his form in ways that even being completely naked had not. There was something supernatural about that leather. “Levi, if you want one of those in every definable color I would not say no.” 

The drake smirked. He’d realized at some point exactly how highly Erwin approved of their racing colors. 

“Nile.” They greeted each other with one of those handshakes that turned into a suitably brisk pat on the back, then Erwin favored Lynette with a tasteful Christian side-hug. “Hi, Lyn.”

“Erwin! I haven’t seen you in a hundred thousand years!”  

“How did you two know to come?”

“Zackley might have hinted after you called in to take the off days,” Nile answered for both of them. “He sends his regards.” 

“Zackley took you off the clock?” Mike asked. “How long?” 

Erwin shrugged. “Since the DCA made their takeover official. I’ve been using vacation days since then. It worked out since I haven’t been assigned a new case, yet.” 

“Shit,” Nanaba said, “How much vacation did you have?”

“He took a day two years ago for a respiratory thing,” Nile recalled. “But he just got the steroid that goes in your ass and came back in the next day.” 

“I was shot,” Erwin reminded them.

Mike snorted in disbelief. “You were on  _ temporary disability.”  _

Erwin laughed. “I have enough days to spare. None of this has gotten around the department, has it?”

“Nah. We kept it out of everyone else’s ears in case the DCA got wind of it, but the official story is, we’ve known you were doing this for months. I don't think Zackley likes the DCA. They've been stomping around stepping on toes, demanding too much. He didn't explicitly say, but I think he's covering your ass as well as he can do.”

“Eat a lot of fruit,” Hanji advised, taking Erwin urgently by the elbow as they all turned for the entrances. “You can get protein out in the woods, but you won’t find fruit this time of year. Pace yourself at the beginning. Well, pace yourself the whole way, actually. Make sure Levi especially stays hydrated. When you’re cold sometimes it can take more time to notice. Both of you take the glucose supplements in your medicine pouch. Get Levi into a sleeping bag as soon as he’s fully human because he’ll lose heat much faster without scales. Do you remember how to set up the stovepipe for the tent? If you set the tent on fire you’ll probably die.”

“We’d be warm for a good ten minutes, though,” Levi grumbled. He stood back as Erwin hugged the humans, kissed the younglings on the heads, and exchanged significant and heartfelt looks with the dragons. Levi did kneel down when Auruo and Petra came to him, hugging them both and letting them babble excitedly about how Mike and Moblit were going to put them on their shoulders so they could see Levi and Erwin go. 

“You should teach Levi some first aid, Erwin,” Hanji continued. “I know you’ve had training, but what if you’re the one who needs help?”

“I’ll teach him,” Erwin promised, squeezing their arm in a way that he hoped was reassuring. 

“Registration is through there,” Hanji said, pointing to the obvious sign that read  _ Registration.  _ “They should be able to tell you where to go after that. Levi, they may try to goad you but it's all part of the competition. Everyone tries to psych each other out at things like this, so don't let it get to you. It's just talk.”

Levi nodded without replying. 

“You’ll do alright,” Mike said gruffly. “A large part of survival is mental and you two are a couple of the most stubborn sons of bitches I know.”

“But if nature wins, can I have your SUV?” Nanaba asked. 

“The SUV belongs to the precinct.”

The dragon sighed. 

“On a serious note, I left everything to Mike, officially,” Erwin told them. “If we do die, you can liquidate all my assets and use that to fund the preserve for a while.” 

“Aw, that’s sweet, Erwin,” Nanaba cooed. “Depressing to think about, but very thoughtful.”

When they all parted ways at the turnstiles it was only a little bit like they would never see them again. 

“Erwin Smith with Levi,” the detective told a volunteer at their own entrance. “We’re the verified substitutes for Camden Atman and Mari.” 

“Registration table will verify you,” the man said, finding the names on his list and simply waving them through. 

The table they wanted was right there by the entrance, slightly recessed behind a strip of canvas where passing spectators would not be able to goggle. The woman at the table set her paperback aside as they approached and it looked like something Lynette would read in her armory cage at the precinct. She looked at them with friendly expectation. 

“Erwin Smith and Levi for Camden Atman and Mari. They called in to verify that we would be taking their place in the race.”

“Is everything alright with them?” she asked. “I was the one who signed them up. They were so nice when we chatted.”

“They’re both fine,” Erwin said. “Something just came up and they couldn’t miss it.” 

The woman nodded, scrolling through something on her small laptop. “Everything is in order,” she said. “I just need to see a photo ID. You can also leave your wallet and phone here with me. Phones are not permitted in the race, anyway. Your only mode of contact will be your emergency beacon, which is connected to the navigation equipment. Anything you give me will be locked up and secure until you have completed the race, otherwise it will be released into the custody of your next of kin.” 

“I didn’t bring a wallet or phone,” Erwin said to her, carefully setting Levi’s saddle on the ground so he could pull his ID from one of those handy strap-on leg pockets and pass it over the table to her. She compared the number to the one that Camden Atman had given to the Idrarod staff for verification and nodded. “Would you like me to keep this for you?”

“That would be fine,” Erwin told her. Solid proof that he’d entered, if the DCA needed it. The official set his card aside for the moment and reached beneath the table to pull out the navigation equipment, which was really a misleading word for what they were being given. It was the size of a large watch, the rectangular screen matching the full width of the band for something like a one inch by two inch display. The woman passed it over the table to Erwin. 

“There will be a full presentation after breakfast on how to use this, but it’s really very simple. That first button along the side pulls up your position in relation to the course markers. You will have a forty mile wide corridor inside of which you are considered to be on course. Any deviations from the course will mean an automatic forfeit, even if you cross the finish line. We do review extenuating circumstances like blizzards and equipment failure for possible exception, but there must be a documented reason why you were incapable of remaining within your corridor. It’s forty miles wide for most of the course and clearly marked on the nav, so really the only excuse is weather, but it does happen.” 

She passed him a second band as well. 

“This is your backup. Keep it in your bag rather than on your person. In case you lose part of your person. If both units go offline, we will assume an emergency and come to your last known location, so if something happens to  _ both _ of your beacons, stay where you are. If nothing is wrong we will simply replace the unit and you can move on. There are outposts along the way that have these supplies, along with emergency medical services, so we will never be travelling all the way from here to assist you. As for the beacons themselves they are waterproof and they will not freeze, though very cold weather may gum the buttons up so just give it a bit of a defrost and it will be fine.” 

The woman appeared to be thinking, so Erwin did not interrupt and Levi wasn’t quick to reply at all. “Yeah, that’s mostly it for the nav,” she decided. “Second button is the beacon, but it won’t activate unless you press it three consecutive times, then hit the red button beside it. There are some areas that, for various reasons, our first responders will not enter. These are marked in red. When you are in a red zone, you must move out of the area in any direction to receive aid.”

“Why are those areas too dangerous for medical personnel?” Erwin asked.

“It can be terrain, like an area prone to avalanche activity, or weather, or some other hazard. Zones can shift around depending on what the weather is doing or what the conditions are. However, red areas are not visible until the beacon is activated and you are in need of emergency assistance. We have it set up that way because this is an endurance race. In a survival situation, the hazards ahead are not clearly marked. You will have to make your own way through them. Receiving emergency assistance is a forfeit, so at that point, you will be able to see where the dangers are, as you are no longer considered to be participating. If the beacon is activated erroneously and you can cancel the signal before the response team arrives, we will not consider that a forfeit, however, we can tell when the beacon is being activated and deactivated for the sole purpose of feeling your way through the course. Each activation is logged and documented. We can see where it was activated, for how long, etc.”

Erwin nodded and motioned for Levi to turn so he could slide it into the bag he carried. Then, he held his wrist out so the drake could put the first on him. The official watched them with interest, but there was no telling what she made of their silent rapport. 

“There’s a couple more things here.” She slid a few sheets of paper over to them. “This is an acknowledgement that you are fully aware of the dangers you face and that all illness and injury including loss of life are strictly your own responsibility from the starting gun to the finish line. We do not subrogate with any insurance company for any reason, even if you are medically evacuated. Medical staff may bill in full for any treatment you receive on the course and they are not contracted with any insurance.”

“I guess they know they don’t have to be. Their customers come to them whether they’re eligible providers or not.” Erwin skimmed the document, but it was essentially the same as she described, just a standard waiver. He signed that one. 

“This one is an entry form. Much less interesting, but just as important. Make sure you fill out the emergency contact information and next of kin since we don’t take that down when the registration is transferred from one party to the other. That form behind it is an acknowledgment that you understand and will abide by the rules of the race or accept your forfeit and/or criminal action should you break any laws of the country you are located in. Killing your fellow racers, for example, is still illegal.”

“Can we kill them if they attack us first?” Levi wondered. 

The woman’s eyes slid over to him, but she didn’t seem terribly perturbed. “The law will apply in the same way as it normally would for the area that you are in when the attack takes place.”

Levi stared at her blankly. “Who makes laws for the arctic circle?” 

Erwin nudged him with his foot, making it look like a casual shifting of weight as he worked on his documents. He filled in Mike’s name under both the emergency contact and the next of kin, noting him as the beneficiary of his estate in the box that asked for the contact’s relationship to himself. When he finished, he slid everything back across the table and smiled good-naturedly. The woman glanced over them and nodded her approval. 

“Alright, you’re registered. They’ll finish registering you in there and check you for firearms and mobile phones. Good luck to both of you.”

“Thank you.”

“That was a lot of rules,” Levi told Erwin in an undertone as they walked. “Do you think we should take notes at the presentation?”

“I didn’t bring anything to write with,” the detective answered, seeing their intended destination immediately. First up, there was a photographer. The man waved them over with a jolly grin, waving for Erwin to keep the saddle with him and snapping photos of each of them individually, then both together. 

“These’ll go on the status boards,” he explained to them as he worked. “They get uploaded over breakfast and we’ll have you right in there by the gun. People following the race using the app, it’ll show up there, also on the idiot box and the internet. It’s all synced up. Relax, you both looked great!”

Erwin and Levi looked at each other, trying to determine which of them had given an impression that they weren't relaxed. It might have been Levi’s scowl, but rather than explain that Levi’s face always looked that way, Erwin thanked the man and moved on. 

Their next stop was a table stocked with medical supplies and a couple of friendly nurses in blue scrubs. 

“There will be one jab each,” the younger man told Erwin. “We monitor your blood chemistry using nano-tech. It’s a basic system, not very specific. We use it to make sure that nothing goes into your body that shouldn’t be there, like steroids or other forms of illegal stimulation. See, we can test you now and you can turn up clean, but it’s a long race with no direct supervision, isn’t it? Caffeine is fine, if you were wondering. Do either of you take any medications?”

“No.” Erwin wasn’t sure he liked the idea of someone monitoring him so intimately, but he supposed they didn’t have much choice. He looked over at Levi to see him eying the older nurse with equal mistrust. “Are you okay with the needle?”

“What is a nano?” Levi asked doubtfully.

“These are very simple sensors,” the male nurse explained eagerly, clearly mistaking Levi’s suspicion for interest. “They move through your blood and read its makeup, reacting to any compound we’ve calibrated them to pick up on. It’s like a long-term drug test.”

Erwin knew about them. Many parole systems used something similar. They were safe, if invasive, but all they could do was send data about their blood. They were useless for anything else. “Give them to me first, so he knows what to expect.”

“Not a fan of needles?”

“I don’t know many who are. Where do you need it?”

“I prefer the crook of an elbow, but anywhere will do so long as there’s a large vessel. A hand or wrist would be fine.” He continued to talk as Erwin pushed up his sleeve to expose his wrist, evidently accustomed to distracting people in this way. “We’ve had some unique challenges here today with all the racing colors. Most of you, we can’t get to the parts we really want, so we’ve had to make do.” He swabbed the detective’s skin and tossed the cotton into a nearby bin marked with the biohazard sign, which he was apparently using as an all-purpose waste receptacle. “How about you? Are you okay with all this?”

“I won’t panic over it.” Truthfully, he wasn’t fond of needles, but he’d minded them a lot more before he was shot. The nano sensors were less of an ordeal than he expected. Other than the initial prick, he only really registered the temperature difference of the saline they were suspended in. It hurt less than a flu vaccination. 

When it came time for Levi to present his own arm, Erwin took his hand and his elbow and held on, but Levi’s flinch was less pronounced than he’d expected. He certainly didn’t try to jerk away. He only bared his teeth at the nurse’s gloved hands.

“That’s the worst of it,” the chatty man assured them. “They’ll have a look at your bags and you can go in to breakfast.”

That station was the most tedious by far, even with two officials conducting the search. Erwin and Levi each relinquished the bag they carried, waiting for the much quieter pair to finish sifting through their belongings looking for contraband. It was funny to Erwin that, because they were crossing the Canadian border, that category still included meat and cheese. They were not allowed firearms, presumably because hunting without one was considered a survival skill. For a dragon, that was true, but without Levi, Erwin would be fairly helpless if he wanted to stay on the move. He had a rough idea how a snare was constructed, but they wouldn’t be in one place long enough to have much luck with them in the winter. He supposed that was the point. Dependability.

Someone had entered the tent behind them--a sort of aristocratically rugged pair that could have walked straight from an outdoor clothing catalogue. They appraised Erwin and Levi with cool disinterest and after a pause, the human nodded. Erwin returned the gesture, thinking they weren’t off to a bad start if this was the customary greeting between competitors. The dragon half of the pair was looking a little aggressive with the direct staring, but to be fair, Levi probably started it.

The breakfast tent wasn’t quite so neutral. Conversations were already in full swing, a loose air of edged camaraderie hanging over the place. Erwin imagined that it must have felt a lot like the start of an expedition to Everest--if the expedition was silently competing against itself and using careful conversation as a means of sizing up the competition. Some of the other racers ignored their entrance, but most looked up, eager to catch a glimpse of each pair that stepped into the tent, and their reactions were mixed. Erwin could see the way it processed in many of their faces, the way they looked at him and dismissed his appearance as something they had expected to see--athletic competence, confidence. Erwin was fairly average in this grouping. Then their eyes fell to Levi and lingered. 

That was the interesting thing to watch. Some--the idiots--began to smirk, eyeballing Levi in a way that almost felt invasive, like he was a product they found to be defective. A few of these people looked back at Erwin, interested now in knowing what kind of a person would invest in a creature that looked like it should have been culled from the gene pool they’d dredged it from. Others were smart enough to be wary, to wonder if there was a reason Levi’s breeder hadn’t done just that. They were slower to jeer, unwilling to show their own hand in case Levi turned out to be a prodigy in disguise and the idiot group was made to look terribly foolish. Their reaction was no less offensive, but it was closer to the truth. A scant few turned away again with little interest, their expressions neutral. Erwin noted a couple of them so he’d remember where to suggest they sit. 

Levi followed quietly to the breakfast buffet, his eyes moving over the other faces in the room like they meant nothing to him. The wary ones became warier. 

“All of the meat is dragon-grade,” the woman at the table told them politely. “Although some is obviously less cooked. Any flour used is a dragon-safe substitute. Better not to get it mixed up right before a big race, don’t you agree?”

“That was very sensible of you.” 

The woman beamed proudly. “Yes, the committee thought of everything. My sister is on it.” 

Erwin had no idea what committee she was talking about. “You’ll have to tell your sister how well it all turned out.” 

“Oh, she’d demanded it,” the woman laughed. “But go on, I’m keeping you from breakfast. The sausage is reindeer and it’s excellent.” 

Erwin made sure to take some of the recommended sausage first, thanking her for the suggestion. After that, he did as Hanji advised and went primarily for fruits, reaching over to drop some onto Levi’s plate as well when the drake looked like he might ignore the fruit bowl altogether in favor of sampling every last one of the incredible array of meats. He would be burning more energy that day than Erwin would, so he couldn’t go terribly wrong loading up on protein.

“Can that little thing eat all that?” one of the idiot camp laughed jovially. It was one of those aggressive comments that was supposed to come off as friendly. Erwin knew the type well. He’d gone through police academy with many of them. This type would compete, but they wouldn’t make it personal unless the challenge became escalated. 

Erwin did not frown. “We have a long way to go.”

“And he’ll be flying twice as hard as the rest, won’t he? Two flaps for everyone else’s one. How big is he when he’s a dragon?”

The area around him was a little quieter than it had been. 

“Levi is always a dragon. Unless he’s been fooling me all this time.”

“Must have,” the man said around a mouthful of breakfast casserole. He was no longer making any particular effort to come off as friendly and had switched over to some form of attempted intimidation. Probably, he was responding to the attention they’d attracted from the others around them. “You’ll want to see if he can carry you before you line up.”

“Do you have another dragon around here?” Levi asked him suddenly, looking around the room like he truly expected to find one. “Or was it more practical for you to carry her since you’re the size of a city bus?”

The dragon seated beside him actually had to look away to hide her smile, but their assailant turned a truly ugly shade purple, sputtering. “You best thank your stars you found an owner hasn’t got a brain in his head. I wouldn’t buy your scrawny carcass to make glue.”

Levi’s eyes scanned the man’s body, appraising him the way he’d seen himself appraised. He made a thoughtful sound. “I’d make a lot of lye soap with yours. Bulk quantities.”

Erwin took Levi by the elbow and pulled him away before the man could figure out what the insult meant. They already had most of the tent talking. Whether it was laughter over Levi’s quick retorts or disapproval at Erwin’s poorly behaved dragon, there was too much attention directed their way already. There weren’t any open tables anymore, but the end of one was free, and its only other occupants had shown them little interest so far. Dragon and human looked remarkably alike. The resemblance was uncanny, particularly when they looked over their coffee cups at Levi and Erwin with identical poker faces. 

“Morning,” the human said into her cup.

“Morning,” the dragon echoed. 

Erwin wondered if they cultivated their resemblance on purpose, or if it went even farther back than that. Perhaps there had been a deliberate choice involved on the human’s part. Erwin returned the greeting despite the significant creep factor, but Levi continued to stare. They probably got that a lot, because they didn’t seem phased--or perhaps they just weren’t the type(s) to be easily disconcerted. 

“Do people make glue out of dragons?” Levi asked. 

“Not that I know of.” 

“That’s horses and rabbits,” the human half of the other pair stated. “They use connective tissues, hides. My family’s fortune was made in woodwork.” 

Erwin supposed that meant the glue in question was used for that purpose. “What an odd coincidence. Will you also be going into the business?”

“Inheriting it,” she agreed. “I’m the eldest. This is Naam.”

The dragon nodded a second greeting. 

Breakfast ran fluidly into the presentation, which came complete with a helpful slideshow that no one was prepared to take notes on. Most of it was a recap of the information they’d all received during the registration process--stay in the corridors, don’t do this, don’t do that, etcetera. They were given a second overview on the beacons and the nav system, which Erwin did his best to listen to attentively despite being bored to death and anxious and ready to get on with it. The atmosphere in the breakfast tent was getting to be more than a little unfriendly and it was visibly getting to Levi. The drake vibrated with nerves, reacting to all the aggression as it spun through the room around them, and he was so keyed up that he could snap at any second. They weren’t playing casual games anymore with the other entrants. This was real, and it had a real potential for violence. Erwin leaned into Levi as they got up to leave, having just finished up with a description of the opening ceremony and how they were all going to walk out, dragons just behind the left elbows of their respective humans.

“We’re going to have to change the plan,” he said quietly, his eyes on the officials as they drifted up the line, repositioning racers as they went. “We can’t afford to pace ourselves today, especially in the beginning. Two reasons. We need to get away from this as soon as we can, because you will be dangerous in your dragon form. One slip is all it would take.”

Levi nodded. “And the second?”

“We’re going to have to show them right here, all at once, that we can hold our own in this race. If not, the time may come later when we need assistance, or we need to work in tandem with another party, and we don’t want them underestimating us or believing we are a poor investment of resources. Also, we’re civilized now, but when we’re all hungry and cold and our fates are less assured, someone may get the bright idea to try eliminating us from the lineup.”

Levi glanced at him. 

“Just because we aren’t supposed to doesn’t mean that everyone can be trusted. It would be a simple matter, hiding a murder in the wilderness. Anything could happen.”

“You don’t have to explain. I know.”

“Then we fly until we can’t see them behind us anymore. Agreed?”

Levi nodded slightly. 

“Place your arm through his,” one of the officials told them cheerfully. She motioned to Erwin’s inside arm, waiting patiently as Levi glanced forward to see what the dragon in front of them was doing. He frowned uncertainly as he slipped his gloved hand up through the inside of Erwin's elbow, checking the pair in front again to be sure it looked right. “Are you excited?” The woman asked them. She certainly looked so giddy she might burst with it. Erwin put on his best smile.

“Absolutely.”

The woman beamed back at them. “Don't forget to stop in front of the cameras and give everyone a wave. Good luck!” 

“Good luck,” the other official echoed as he passed. He was no less friendly, but something in his tone suggested that he actually thought they'd need it. 

When they were all positioned properly, they trooped out to a crowd that seemed to think they were at a rock concert. The noise level was completely disproportionate to the number of people who were actually there, and it only increased as they emerged from the tent, rising sharply to fever pitch. Each pair was announced by name--fifty one in sum, and according to the announcer this was considered to be a smaller number than average. The DCA had a couple of agents representing, sitting with the announcer and the National Obedience Association’s contingent in their private booth. Erwin was only somewhat relieved to find he didn't recognize them. This was not the pair who’d be carrying a warrant to their door--had already done so, in fact--but there was no telling how closely they worked with the agents who had been sent to collect Levi. There was no telling if they would recognize their faces. 

“The DCA has agents on hand. Don't react,” the detective murmured, feeling Levi’s fingers tense on his arm. “They may not place us.”

“Why are they here?” Levi whispered back. 

It made perfect sense now that Erwin thought about it. Of course they would put in a showing at the largest endurance race on the west coast. “Interagency cooperation. It was polite of the NOA to invite them and it was polite of the DCA to attend. Just stay calm.”

“I am. I have this feeling.” The drake looked around, at the crowd packed in on collapsible bleacher stands, stacked into chaotic tiers. “It's just like the ring.”

Erwin had thought it as they came out, squinting into bright sunlight at all those people staring at them. He’d wondered if it would remind Levi much of the life he'd left. “And that’s okay?” He might could get away with scruffing Levi and calling it a fainting spell, something to do with nerves, but he would need some advance warning. Levi had been holding himself together remarkably well, even taking his steely determination into account. All those dragons crammed in around them and the hostile glances and the derisive laughter--Erwin expected that to make it difficult. He expected the screaming crowd to dredge up memories at the worst possible time, when the fresh scent of fifty other adult dragons was bright and hot in Levi’s nostrils. But Levi  _ did _ seem okay.

“It's easier,” was what he said. 

“Easier?”

“It's helping me focus,” Levi clarified. “On what we need to do.”

“The crowd is?” Erwin had lowered his voice. They were approaching the little platform with its bank of cameras, at which point they would no longer be able to put their heads down and hope not to be noticed. All they could hope for in the next handful of minutes was that they not be recognized, or if they were recognized, that it take too long for the DCA to organize their response. If they stopped the race to pull them aside, it would all end before it began. 

Levi shrugged. “I can't tell you why. I wasn't expecting it, either.”

Erwin nodded. There were two pairs in front of them, then one. On the other side of the platform, dragons were assuming their natural forms, clustering loosely to be saddled. Levi’s eyes were on them as he stepped up with Erwin onto the platform, but he was able to turn away and look calmly at the camera, his expression dull with boredom. Erwin gave a slight smile, waited for their names to roll across the enormous megatron screen they’d set up for the crowd, and then he stepped away as quickly as it was safe to do so. He hadn't dared look up at the official’s box when his face had been plastered over a screen that was larger than his house, but he did chance a quick look as they moved into the open area to saddle Levi. One of the DCA agents leaned towards the other, saying something quietly into his ear. It didn't necessarily mean anything. 

There was a reaction when Levi shifted. It wasn't particularly polite, something vaguely derogatory rippling through the other contestants. It was all just noise in a group that size. No one said anything directly to them, but the quality of the conversation changed. 

“We're going as soon as that gun fires,” Erwin reminded him, probably unnecessarily. Levi made a visible effort to ignore everything else that was happening, but he was tense under the detective’s hands. “You're doing well. Just a few more minutes.”

There had been a lot of wisdom in Hanji’s insistence that Erwin learn the saddle’s configuration by heart. They were already being scrutinized closely for Levi's size, perhaps the subtle carryover traits they’d seen around his eyes. Anyone looking for them would have known what they were. Had Erwin fumbled with the saddle, they'd have lost every last shred of credibility they had, but everything went smoothly. When Erwin gave an experimental tug, nothing moved in ways it shouldn't. He looked like he’d been preparing all year. 

Others were moving over to the rows of mounting blocks provided, requiring assistance with the extra height they had to deal with, while Levi simply had to duck his shoulder to allow Erwin up. “You think they packed one of those in their bags?” the detective asked. 

Levi snorted softly. 

The starting line was as straightforward as promised. The spaces were clearly marked--large squares at staggered intervals that gave plenty of space for the dragons to open their wings. It was still going to be chaotic when the first and second lines tried to sort their various speeds out. 

“I suggest skimming the ground until we’re well clear,” Erwin told him. They were one of the first pairs mounted and so they took a position on the front line. From that spot, they wouldn't have to maneuver around anyone if they took advantage of Levi’s superior speed to push out ahead. His size would allow him to hug the ground while the others needed more vertical space to push themselves into the sky--more clearance for their broader wings. The drake looked around briefly and nodded.

“You’d better hope he's faster than he looks,” someone behind them spoke up. “Or that he knows how to get out of the way.” Erwin didn't have to look around to know it was the man who confronted them earlier in the breakfast tent. The empty spaces all around them suggested that the choice had probably been deliberate. “We won't slow down out of pity.”

Erwin took his time with his goggles, sliding them over his eyes and adjusting the strap so it fit comfortably. The sun filtration in the lens had been a good idea. He hadn't realized he was squinting until he put them on. Only then did he turn in the saddle, scanning the hulking dragon and her hulking rider with equal disinterest. 

“If you want to run over us, you'd better fly hard.”

The loudspeaker hummed to life behind them, interrupting the other man’s response. “Riders line up! Final call!”

The row was filling, and the row behind theirs as well. There were dragons now to either side, one subtly looking down at them and the other staring determinedly ahead and trying to pretend like Levi wasn't anything out of the ordinary. He'd look smaller this close to them--impossibly small. 

“Take your marks!” 

Levi shifted in place, his wings loosening and body tensing to lunge. He’d have to really move to get clear of the female dragon’s initial takeoff. She had more muscle on Levi and would carry farther on that first push. They would probably aim to pass too close, angling directly over Erwin's head so they’d clip them from above. Something like that would look more like an accident than a deliberate attack, and who would assume differently? Levi wasn't in the same weight class. Erwin leaned forward over the pommel, tightening his grip in preparation to flatten himself to Levi’s spine. 

The last seconds before the gun were terrible. It couldn't have been more than a handful of heartbeats, but as the silence stretched, Erwin imagined those agents from the DCA reaching over, laying a hand on the announcers arm. They were so close they could stop the race as soon as they wanted to. He barely spared a thought for the pair behind them, though they were there too, prickling relentlessly at the back of his awareness. 

Erwin was never so relieved to hear the crack of powder discharging. 

Behind them, the air churned dangerously as the female dragon opened her wings, but even on the ground, Levi could move. He darted forward before he even tried to take off, using his wings to propel them along the ground instead of rising immediately like their pursuers expected. The saddle jerked harshly into Erwin’s abdomen as Levi moved, but it was a lot less painful than catching a dragon’s talons to the back. It had been close, all the same. Erwin felt all that incredible weight as the other pair passed overhead, but they did not manage to make the contact they had aimed for. 

Levi skimmed the ground for a few paces more, skipping like a stone over the surface of a lake, but as soon as he felt the air above them clear he pushed off a final time and rose. They were just far enough the ground to give his wings clearance, picking up speed rapidly as they slipped under the handful of dragons that had gotten an initial lead. It was effortless after that. One second the others were all around them, on top of them, ahead and behind, and then they were all gone. The noise of fifty one wings receded to a dull background roar, and then a hum, hovering in their wake like they were standing still. Levi wasn't simply above average. He was anomalous. 

Erwin didn't think his laugh would carry, but he hoped it reached them, floating back along their slipstream long after they were tiny specks on the horizon.

 


	30. Burning Daylight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Levi demonstrates a low tolerance for meal replacement bars.

_ ************** _

_ December 1 _

_ ************** _

Levi barely paused for lunch. In fact, he didn't stop even  _ after _ they’d technically stopped. Instead, he ate standing up, scarfing one of their meal replacement bars and informing Erwin that he needed to hurry the hell up. One moment, the detective was glancing down to tear open the foil on his own lunch, and the next he was looking up to find that Levi was already finished and staring at him impatiently. 

“Have you had any water?”

When Levi frowned, Erwin held out the canteen in his hand until the drake took it. 

“Drink as much of that as you’ll hold. One thing this area has in abundance is water.” 

They did not stop again. Erwin wondered where the water went, if Levi could use and store it more efficiently than a human or if he was getting rid of it mid-flight like a bird. The detective didn't get much opportunity to find out. He didn't get much opportunity to do anything but hold on and bend low over the saddle until the light began shifting into evening and he signaled for Levi to land. 

“We have time until dark,” the drake pointed out, speaking as soon as he had the anatomy to do so. “We could fly at least another hour.”

But Erwin was already unhooking the saddle bag that contained their tent. “I'm still not comfortable enough with this thing to put it up in a hurry,” he said. “In any case, we’re at least half a day ahead of everyone else by now. Maybe more. We can spare an hour.”

Levi frowned, but came to help Erwin prepare the ground for their tent. It wasn't exactly a clearing they'd landed in, but Levi had found by necessity a small gap in the foliage that was large enough for him to pass through. It gave them plenty of space to work with. 

“Do you feel tired?” Erwin asked. 

“Not even a little. Hanji did a good job with the weight in our bags.” Levi looked around him at the dense forest, measuring his odds. “I'm going to try hunting.”

“You won't get turned around will you?”

Levi snorted a laugh. “I wouldn't lose you in a labyrinth.” 

“Alright then, I'll take care of the homestead while you're gone.”

It was almost full dark by the time Levi dragged himself back into the clearing, looking flushed and irritable. Erwin had long since finished setting up and he lay stretched along the length of his sleeping bag with his boots off, reading by the merry light of their first campfire. He put the book aside as Levi appeared. “How did it go?”

“The mighty hunter brings you water from the river,” Levi sighed, slumping to the ground at the edge of Erwin’s sleeping bag and bending sluggishly to unlace his boots. “It's not as easy as it sounds sneaking up on things.  _ Now _ , I'm exhausted.”

“There's no need to explain,” Erwin assured him, uncapping his canteen and taking a long drink. “Bambi can have this round.”

“Bambi?”

“A fictional deer,” Erwin explained, getting up to find Levi's sleeping bag. But it was too late. When he returned, the drake had already claimed Erwin's, curling around the fire so closely that he was nearly spooning it. 

“My back is cold.”

“We can move into the tent,” Erwin offered. “No fire, but it'll keep the wind off you.”

“I’m fine here. I just need a human back shield and I'll make it through the night.”

“Well, if you roll into into the fire, you can't have my sleeping bag.” Erwin unrolled the second bundle and spread it alongside Levi. 

“I'm  _ in _ your sleeping bag, so I'd only be taking mine back. You can share with me, though.”

“How generous of you.”

Levi wiggled back into Erwin when he moved to curl around the drake, nudging them tightly together. “If we fly like that again tomorrow, we’ll have a good lead.”

Erwin's muscles throbbed with dread at the thought. “If we fly like that again tomorrow, I’m not sure my spine will be in one piece by evening.”

“I did feel you squirming an awful lot up there. We can slow down tomorrow, then fly for speed the next day. That should give your elderly bones the time they need to recover.”

“Pacing ourselves the full distance of the race would be safer. We don’t know what we have ahead of us, but it won't be anything you’ll want to face at half-strength.”

“We could finish first,” Levi insisted. “I could put us far enough ahead that they won't ever catch up even if we hit an obstacle that takes us a lot of time. What was the prize for first?”

“I don't know,” Erwin admitted, “I wasn't thinking about placing, just finishing. It's probably monetary.”

“Not only that, right? If we win first, we’d have all those cameras close enough to count our nose hairs.”

Erwin thought about that for a moment, experimenting with the angle of his elbow so it bent comfortably around Levi's puffy sleeping bag. The fire was almost uncomfortably hot at that range, even through his racing leathers, and he tucked his hand into the bag to shield it from the heat, turning his exposed face into the back of Levi's head. “If we win first, we’d be fully covered by the media,” he said slowly. “They would want to interview us. The hype would be brief, but any move on the DCA’s part or on the court system’s would set it all off again. Hanji or Mike could tip them off. It would be a great story. The whole country would be outraged.”

“Mm.”

“It's a good idea. We can't compromise our safety for it, though. Our primary goal is finishing at all. If you feel tired at any time, rein yourself in.”

“Of course.”

Erwin paused, feeling the sleepy satisfaction radiating from Levi like a strong cologne. “You're enjoying this.”

“No.”

“You are. You're getting competitive.”

“I’ve always been very good at fighting, but they never raced us. I didn't know I was that much faster. I could be called good at it.”

“You could be called exceptional.”

“And nobody died. They never trained me to race. It's an ability that's all mine and it isn't ugly.”

Erwin closed his eyes, releasing a slow breath that was all contentment. “Then we'll try for first. Safely.”

“I'll watch my limits.”

“Those limits include stopping to eat and drink. You need to rest more than you did today. It may take time to stop, but keeping yourself in good condition will allow you to fly faster in the long term.”

Levi actually seemed to consider that before replying. “You may need to remind me.”

“That won't be a problem. I'll just alert you when my back starts hurting.”

Levi laughed drowsily. 

  
  


**************

December 2

**************

Erwin hadn't pitched the tent for nothing. He woke up in the wee hours of the morning, unable to feel his lips, shivering at all the heat he was losing through his head. His body was warm enough, but the fire had gone out and Levi was partially fused to his chest, his bare nose frigid against Erwin's collar bone. The drake woke briefly with the loss of Erwin’s warmth, complaining irritably and squirming all the way to the tent, but he was out again so quickly that it barely seemed to register. That, more than anything else, spoke of how spent he'd been. 

Morning in the woods was a great deal more cheerful once the sun rose. It was still freezing, but the cold was bright and refreshing rather than miserable, interrupted by brief touches of sunlight on their skin. Levi was in his dragon form as soon as they’d broken camp and re-packed. He shuffled off into the trees while Erwin kicked dirt into their campfire, leaving the detective to wait with the saddle and their bags while he attended to his business elsewhere. 

“I'll signal you in a few hours if you don't land first,” Erwin told him a short while later as he stepped around Levi’s chest with one of the final buckles for the saddle. “Be on the lookout, though, for water sources you can drink from in your dragon form.”

The drake sank his teeth into the top of Erwin’s beanie hat and tossed it over his shoulder--probably to shut the man up. 

“Ruthless.”

Levi snorted. 

They flew more conservatively that day. Levi started them quickly, like he meant to outrun the early morning chill, but he slowed when the sun came out, discovering almost immediately where to find warm updrafts along rocky riverbeds and craggy foothills. He rode thermals like he’d been doing it all his life, letting his wings slow almost to a full stop as the warm air pushed them upward. The first few times, Erwin’s stomach had twisted as the drake froze and they started to sink. There had been a couple of heartbeats where it seemed like they might plummet, but they never did. The air always caught them before they fell, lifting them even higher. Erwin wondered what that felt like to Levi, how he knew which currents of air to trust with their lives. 

It was much slower going that way, but it was effortless--allowing Levi the breaks Erwin insisted upon without actually having to stop. Levi found a way around Erwin’s water edict as well. He would take them low, gliding just over the surface of a lake or a wide river, and he’d dip his mouth quickly into the water, drinking without ever setting them down. He’d turn if he had the space, making several passes or simply following the river for a time, then he would veer sideways and push them hard off the bank, launching them skyward to continue on with their flight. After a while, the only time Erwin had to signal him at all was to direct him along their course--something he could communicate most effectively with his knees now that he wasn’t using them to help hold on for dear life. 

Erwin was careful to sit upright when he could. He was still learning with every muscle in his body that endurance wasn't a word intended solely for Levi. He’d ridden a pony once at a state fair, however he'd been six and the whole experience lasted about as many minutes--certainly not long enough to prepare him for a day and a half of nonstop riding. Still, if that was the worst thing he would have to bear, no one would see him complaining. Just limping. 

When Levi stopped for lunch, Erwin had stiffened up so badly that he nearly got his far leg hung on the saddle as he slid off. It didn't help that the dragon was already sliding away before both of Erwin's boots were fully settled, Levi's garbled laugh emerging from his vocal chords even as they formed in his throat. The effect was strange. 

“I want to clean up,” the drake announced, ducking briskly beneath the saddle as it sagged around him. 

“That water comes down from the mountains.” Erwin thought he'd at least warn him, though he knew it would be something Levi would ultimately be finding out for himself, by the decisive way he was working his fingers into the laces beneath one of his arms. It would take them forever to get back into their clothing, but Erwin couldn't deny that changing the liner--and the underwear beneath--sounded like a good solid plan, at the very least. 

“Jesus  _ tits,”  _ was Levi's assessment of the water temperature, but that didn't prevent him from staggering the rest of the way in. Erwin was several steps behind, so he had a moment to question his choices as he teetered over the large, slippery stones that bordered the riverbank. 

They hadn't brought anything in the way of soap. It would only be dead weight in a matter of days, when they’d moved too far north to risk removing their clothing at all, much less getting into the water afterwards. Still, they were able to clean the sweat from their bodies and faces. They even turned their heads over and scrubbed at their scalps. They were in and out in minutes, but their skin was still rosy with cold and they both shivered, wondering if they felt clean enough to justify their discomfort. 

Levi climbed shakily onto one of the large boulders at the river’s edge, instinctively finding the warmest place in the area to lay himself out on. As Erwin climbed up beside him, he pressed his chest into the sun-heated stone and seemed content to bask there indefinitely like a chilly lizard. “I don't feel better,” he mumbled into the rock beneath him. “Well. My face feels better. The rest of me feels cold.”

Initially, the cold had helped ease some of the ache in Erwin's muscles, but the effect was short-lived, as they were now stiffening up instead of loosening. “If we agree never to do that again, I won't complain about your smell if you don't complain about mine.”

Levi sighed, turning regretfully to watch the water bubbling past their boulder. “Agreed.”

Erwin watched the river for a few minutes longer, turning to look at Levi instead when it threatened to lull him into a light doze. The drake's eyes were already closed, his head resting on his arm, and his skin was drying, fading back to its natural color as the chill left him. There was a spot of water still clinging stubbornly to Levi's shoulder, pooling in the dip of a shallow scar. Erwin watched it gather there and grow heavy, getting ready to spill over. 

The detective sat up quickly. 

One of the drake's eyes cracked open, reflecting drowsy interest rather than accusation as he watched Erwin slide back down the boulder to the ground. He can't have known what the detective had been tempted to do with his tongue, and right then was not the time to reopen the subject of scars, directly or indirectly, or to find out if catching water from them was forbidden territory. It was time for lunch and rehydrating and collecting another half a day’s worth of saddle sores. So Erwin brought Levi a couple more meal replacement bars and a clean set of underthings and sat there dragging his own racing colors onto his body with half a bar hanging from his own mouth. 

“How many more of these do we have?” The dragon asked, sitting up to help Erwin lace himself into the leather. He nudged the detective’s elbow out of his way so he could work. 

“Enough to buy you the time you need to learn how to hunt.”

“You wouldn't have so much confidence if you’d seen me last night. I couldn't get close, and I can’t use fire without ruining the meat.”

That was true. Hard as dragonfire was to extinguish, the likelihood of putting it out before the damage was done would be slim. 

“What about fish?” Erwin asked. “Some sections of this river looked shallow. Maybe you could drop out of the sky and land on one.”

It sounded implausible even before Levi started looking at him like he’d grown a second head. Erwin sighed. “An open field, then, maybe. If we can find one of those there should be rabbits. Rats, if we don’t think about it too carefully.”

“I’m never eating a rat again,” Levi said firmly. “I’ll starve first.”

Cold understanding drove Erwin’s next suggestion straight from his head. There were so many aspects of Levi’s previous life that hadn’t even occurred to him to wonder about--like what would happen in a stable full of starving dragons when vermin came to investigate the smell, or why they hadn’t seen any rodents that night when they most definitely should have. Even Hanji hadn’t thought to note their absence. 

Levi went on quickly before Erwin could say anything about the unexpected revelation, signalling that he didn’t want to linger on it. “I’ll make something work. I’ve seen a lot of things from the sky, so I know they’re down here. I can catch something.” That fierce little furrow between his brows had the detective reaching out to touch it, wanting to smooth the tension away. It didn’t go anywhere, but Levi did lean his head into the touch.

“I’m not worried. It’s only the second day.” Erwin smoothed the drake’s damp hair away from his face and stood, wanting to stretch out his muscles a little more before climbing back into the saddle. He laced his fingers together and pressed his hands skyward, rolling his stiff shoulders. Levi’s eyes followed him, but his thoughts were elsewhere, worry and determination chasing each other across his face. His eyes only came into focus when Erwin bent to lace his boots, feeling the dark green leather pull tight across his ass.

“You’re doing that on purpose,” Levi accused. 

“Would you rather fantasize about mangled rabbits?” 

“Only if I get to  _ eat _ them,” the drake answered, but he stood, sliding down the boulder and following Erwin back over to their bags. He slipped the second meal replacement bar surreptitiously into one of the front zippered pouches--something Erwin wasn’t going to make an issue of unless Levi showed signs of fatigue. All reassurances aside, they did need to get some real food into the drake sooner rather than later. He was burning more energy than a feeble little meal replacement bar could contend with. Erwin wondered if Levi realized that more than he let on--if that was what today’s slower pace had been about. 

But Erwin only had until they were off the ground to wonder. As soon as they were airborne, Levi flew them hard. He sliced through the air the way he had that first day, taking his fears out in the form of speed. Perhaps he figured that going faster would give them one less thing to worry about. Falling behind would hardly be an issue after today, if that was what mattered to Levi right then. It could have been something else that spurred him forward, like the joy of speed or the effort of exertion. Or perhaps he was reminding himself that he was free, unbound to any place he didn’t want to stay. That was a powerful idea, a beautiful, frightening notion--that Levi could stay up here if he wanted. He would be truly free as soon as they crossed the border into Canada. He could lose himself in the wilderness and belong only to himself. They’d discussed it before, and the option was still open. It was something Levi could choose. 

Erwin hadn’t put on the full facial hood and was forced to duck his head against the wind, moving only to look at the map on his wrist. It was a difficult thing to gauge in flight, without the luxury of both his hands, but Erwin thought they might be entering Canada within the next handful of hours. Flying all out wasn’t a wise way to use Levi’s strength, but the drake seemed to need it, for whatever reason. 

The day wore into early evening, with little to break the monotony of hard, rapid flight but the brief dives Levi took for water, which he also executed at top speed. Erwin got the sense that Levi could go on like this forever--an absurd and dangerous thought, but awe-inspiring nonetheless. He had no idea what the drake was running on. The meal replacement bar from lunch had to be long gone by the time Erwin signalled him to land for the night. 

It was a little early, but Levi did not complain. They were just on the edge of a small patch of open grassland--less than a mile across, but suitable, perhaps, for their purpose. Erwin did not wish him luck. He simply slid out of the saddle and told Levi not to burn the energy shifting. It was simple enough to release him from the saddle without necessitating two rapid changes. When everything hit the ground, Levi arched his back as though to loosen it up, shoved Erwin once with the front of his enormous face, and slid away into the trees along the edge of the field.

Erwin was sensing the start of a routine. It worked for him, pitching the tent while Levi was away. The work was slower with one set of hands rather than two, but he felt less like dead weight, doing it. Even with the extra time, it was well after dark before Levi returned. Erwin had a fire going, but he’d already moved several times to avoid smoke as the wind changed direction. He was sitting up in his sleeping bag, having just relocated himself for the fourth or fifth time, when movement in the underbrush drew his attention to the darkness beyond his small circle of light. 

“Levi?” He called, unable to see anything with the fire between them.

The drake all but dragged himself into the campsite, collapsing so loosely into the V of Erwin’s legs that the man had to drop his book and catch him before he pitched sideways into the fire. “You’ve overdone it,” he murmured, pulling Levi upright so that he sagged back into his chest.

“Yes, and we’re still going to starve.”  

Erwin laughed and passed him one of the familiar, foil-wrapped bars. “It’s only our second night.” 

Levi opened the packed with fingers that shook ever so slightly with exhaustion--tremors that were reflected in the rest of his body as well. “I thought I had it figured out,” he said quietly, almost to himself. Or maybe he just didn’t have the energy to raise his voice. “I thought I knew what I did wrong last night.” 

“You’re running yourself ragged.” Erwin bent his head and pressed his lips to the drake’s damp neck--the side without the scar--and let his eyes close. “There’s no sense in hurting yourself.”

“I’m filthy,” Levi protested. “I smell like a sweaty asshole.” 

“You smell fine,” Erwin assured him. “Good, actually.” It was true. Levi smelled like sweat, yes, but he couldn’t detect any of the asshole qualities that the drake mentioned. He smelled warm and outdoorsy--something he probably wouldn’t take as a compliment--and the sweat itself was far from off-putting. There was something strongly  _ Levi  _ to it that Erwin normally only caught brief hints of beneath the prevailing scents of soaps and shampoos. He continued idly along his chosen path as Levi ate, giving him time to finish before pressing him slightly forwards, exposing the back of his neck. 

“May I?” Erwin asked, brushing his lips along the very base of Levi’s hairline to let him know exactly what he intended. 

“Please.” 

The word sent something warm and shiverry down the detective’s spine, moreso even than the simple display of trust that exposing that part of him required. Erwin fixed his arm around Levi’s chest, ready to hold him up when he sagged, and took his mouth a little lower.

Levi’s sigh was released as a slow moan, though it was clearly relief rather than arousal. His body softened in Erwin’s arms, his weight given over to the detective as he relaxed into him. The process was more gradual than it had ever been when Erwin used his hands--perhaps because less pressure was being applied--and the detective was wholly unable to resist the way his lips parted, allowing his tongue to flick out and taste the sharp tang of Levi’s sweat. 

“S-shit,” Levi gasped, his breath a faint shiver. 

“We probably should have put you in a sleeping bag first,” Erwin mused, slipping free of his own so he could unzip the edge and peel it back. 

“Nng ... you started it,” the drake slurred, his legs like jello when he tried to move them into the vacated sleeping bag. Instead, he kicked Erwin in the knee. “Sorry.”

“It's okay, you had all the force of a raging kitten behind that one.”

Levi kicked him again and that time it was intentional, if no more forceful. Erwin simply caught his foot and unlaced the boot. By the time he had it off, Levi had recovered enough to flop his leg down into the correct fold of fabric while Erwin worked on the other foot, freeing him from that shoe as well. 

“How would I get along without you?” Levi asked, exhaustion in every syllable even as he tried joking. 

“You’d wear your boots in all sorts of inappropriate situations, I'd imagine.” Erwin zipped Levi all the way up to his smirking lips, resigning them both to another routine of musical sleeping bags as he stepped away to throw his own--Levi's--back into the tent. He'd left it rolled up by the fire to warm, recalling Levi's chills from the night before. 

“Not staying out here?” Levi asked as he watched Erwin set his boots inside as well. 

“The wind has been pretty fickle and I don't want to be smothered in my sleep. Or wake up on fire.”

“Sounds cozy,” Levi murmured, though he didn't wiggle or protest when Erwin lifted him. 

“Could you actually survive that?” Erwin wanted to know, ducking into the tent and carefully setting Levi down. 

“In my dragon form, a regular fire wouldn't do much damage. Dragonfire, though, would fuck me up real bad.”

Erwin rather thought that dragonfire would fuck anyone up real bad, but he worried a little less about Levi spooning their campfire, at least. The drake watched him tend to their last minute business, zipping the tent closed and unrolling their second sleeping bag--now neither Levi's nor Erwin's. He had an air of expectation about him, though there wasn't much light to see it through the canvas tent fabric. Erwin fumbled around in the dark until Levi grabbed him and pulled him down. 

“Now,” the drake yawned, fitting his back to Erwin's front, “I believe you were in the middle of convincing me that we weren't going to starve.”


	31. Dark Horse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They eat, they freeze, they state their intentions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ******** MINOR TRIGGER WARNING MAYBE ****** for descriptions of butchering meat.**
> 
>  
> 
> I'm so sorry for the wait. This chapter happened very, very slowly, literally a sentence at a time. It seems like I've been having an endless sequence of migraine headaches coupled with this deep exhaustion that I can't describe, so it's either been painful to look at screens or I've fallen asleep trying to write. My face is a living barometer, so I think it has something to do with all the little summer storms we've been having.
> 
> Thank you all for your responses to the question of publication and I'm going to start going through and replying properly to you all. I may still be really slow, but I appreciate the help. <3

**************

_December 3_

**************

They planned the third day over breakfast, still huddled in their sleeping bags like sleepy caterpillars. They would treat the morning like the devil was behind them, pressing even farther ahead of their fellow racers as each burst of speed made them a little more difficult to catch. That would allow them to maintain their lead and still open up the rest of the afternoon for some much-needed hunting activities. Erwin wasn't quite prepared to admit it aloud, but he was also starting to feel a little concerned. It was only day three and they had plenty of meal replacement bars, but they couldn't survive on those alone. They were meant as an emergency food source, not as a dietary staple, and Levi was still stubbornly avoiding eating any more than one at a time.

Today, that would change. They had the materials for a crude fishing pole--hooks and a small spool of line. All they needed was time, which they bought themselves with a quick morning’s flight. Between the pair of them--Erwin fishing and Levi hunting--they'd be hard-pressed not to come up with something edible.

Erwin kept his eyes on the ground as they flew--not because he hadn't been prepared for the speed, but because he was keeping a close eye out for the border, unsure of whether or not it would show on their map. He needn't have worried. It appeared as a thin gray line on Erwin’s screen right about the time he caught sight of it ahead--a perfectly cleared gap in the trees that extended farther than Erwin could see in both directions.

“Canada!” The detective called, trying to make his voice heard over the wild rush of wind tearing by them. Levi rocked his wings in the air, a shallow dip on the left side, then the right. It came off as a sort of nod to Erwin, or an acknowledgment of some sort.

By noon, they were several hours north of the border and back into civilization, which was strange. Erwin hadn’t thought to ask if Tim Hortons was an acceptable pit stop, but he suspected that the answer would have been negative, anyway. He eyed the roof of something that looked like it could be a shopping center and thought longingly about the deli section they would probably be immediately disqualified for walking into. He hadn’t brought any cash with him, anyway. It seemed silly with the city spread below them, but it hadn’t even occurred to Erwin that their course may inevitably take them over populated areas. It defied the idea of an endurance race, somehow.

But the odd thing was, people seemed to be waiting for them.

Of course, their beacons were being tracked on GPS. The race officials said that people could follow their progress on an app, but Erwin had imagined something more like sports scores where people pulled out their phones at lunch or on break, perhaps before bed or after waking up in the morning. He hadn’t anticipated that people would be there to _meet_ them, gathering in parking lots and along residential streets with their faces pointed skywards, waving or taking photographs, calling loudly enough for their voices to carry. Erwin thought he saw a couple of news vans with camera crews clustered alongside. It made him wonder, how far ahead, exactly, had they gotten?

They didn’t find a good place to stop until well after midday. Their morning had been a strange frenzy of well-wishers and onlookers, hours of scattered groups jumping up when they saw them, whoops and hollers. But eventually, buildings and streets thinned back into trees. It took a while and even then they ran into scattered buildings and lonely country roads every time Erwin was just deeming them far enough from civilization to stop. Finally, it was Levi who took them down, landing amongst the sparse trees that bordered a thin vein of river on one side and an open field on the other.

“This is probably someone’s property,” Erwin pointed out.

“If they didn’t want us landing here they should have marked it on the map,” Levi countered, letting the saddle fall around him and lifting his arms over his head, rolling his shoulders like they bothered him.

“Are you sore?”

“A little. Nothing a day out of the saddle won’t fix. How’s your ass?”

“Nothing a day out of the saddle won’t fix,” the detective parroted.  

One corner of Levi’s mouth turned up, and Erwin reached out to set his messy hair to rights almost automatically like he’d been doing it for years.

“Can you fish here?” the drake asked.

“Probably not legally.”

“But there’s fish in the water and you can get them out so we can eat them?”

“I’m definitely going to try.”

“Good. I’ll see about the land things.”

 _“Please_ don't kill anybody's dogs,” Erwin requested.

Levi paused, having looked ready to shift. “Can I kill them if they look like strays?”

“It's probably best just to stay away from dogs altogether,” Erwin decided. “And cats. And probably raccoons and foxes, too, because they're common carriers of rabies.”

Levi blinked at him slowly, exasperated. “I've been vaccinated for rabies.”

“I haven't. That isn't a routine vaccination for humans.”

Levi made a face. “Wouldn't it be easier to vaccinate yourselves rather than every other species of animal that exists?”

“You would think so, but people don't always think in straight lines that way so instead we end up with situations like this one where we can't eat raccoons on endurance races.”

 _“You_ can't eat raccoons. If I catch one I'm eating it.” Levi slipped into his dragon form and trotted off smugly into the trees.

 

The drake was gone and back so quickly that Erwin hadn’t progressed much farther than assembling their campsite. He'd figured he would be too tired, too discouraged, or too busy cooking to squeeze it in later, so he ultimately decided to get that taken care of before settling in to try his hand at fishing. It had been a good decision to wait, because fishing would have been completely unnecessary.

What Levi brought was--well, it wasn't a dog. To be fair, it hadn't been on Erwin's list of restricted items at all, but only because he thought it would be an obvious exclusion, completely unacceptable, really, if you were thinking like a human. In Levi's defense, he wasn't human and they hadn't discussed it, and the way he stood proudly over his prize was a little bit tragic considering that Erwin would have to tell him never to do it again.

“Well, you were certainly resourceful,” the detective said, forcing his hand to stay down by his side instead of allowing it to wander up and rub at his eyes in dismay at the sight before them. An entire adult cow. Levi had swooped down into a pasture in broad daylight and made off with somebody's livestock.

The drake frowned, instantly suspicious of Erwin's tone. “It isn't a dog.”

“No, it isn't.”

“But you're not happy.”

“We're not going to starve, so I'm thrilled,” Erwin admitted, and that was the honest truth in the end, even if Levi's methods had been risky and illegal. “Nobody saw you?”

“I don't think so. I didn't see any sign that anyone else was around.”

“There was no house?”

Levi shook his head, looking faintly dismayed. “Can we get into trouble for this?”

“Legally, it would be considered theft,” Erwin answered, going to fetch the razor sharp knife that Mike had given him for butchering meat. “I'm also certain they would disqualify us from the race if they found out we’d eaten something domesticated. It’s something we needed, but it's also something we can't afford to do again.”

Levi nodded solemnly, looking disappointed like he’d thought they'd found a workaround to the hunting problem. Erwin was sorry he had to be the one to explain differently, but better he than the race officials. “It's alright,” he assured the drake, kneeling thoughtfully over their dinner. “It should go unnoticed if we don’t make a pattern of it. Or at the very least, it can’t be proven. Would you get more benefit from this if you ate it in your dragon form?”

“I’m not sure,” Levi answered. “I could probably store more energy that way.”

“We won’t be able to carry much with us. Temperatures have been low enough to refrigerate the meat, but we don’t have enough space to butcher an entire cow. I could take enough to see us through tomorrow, maybe the next day at most. If you filled up tonight and tomorrow morning on what’s left, you should be in good shape until lunch.”

“Until dinner, more like,” the drake replied. “Do you need my help?”

“No, you found it, I’ll do the rest.”

Levi nodded, kneeling to unlace his boots. “Take whatever we can carry for the next couple of days before you set anything aside for my dragon form. There’s no way of knowing if I’ll have any more luck with the wild shit.” He pulled the boots from his feet and stood to work on his clothing.

“What are you doing?”

“Sponging off. I think I’ll stay warm enough if I didn’t wet my hair.”

Erwin rather doubted it, cold as it was getting. He looked at the watch on his wrist, which pointed out to him in both Fahrenheit and centigrade digits that temperatures were barely hovering above freezing. Levi was already shivering in the sharp air, standing in full sun, but evidently the misery he recalled from their last attempt at bathing could not outweigh his need for personal hygiene. Personally, Erwin could live without it if it meant putting any part of his body into that river. He was aware of Levi undressing as he started work on the cow, but it required too much of his attention to watch him and see how he fared. He was not a butcher. Mike had given him a crash course on how to safely take a wild animal apart, where most of the meat could be found, where to avoid cutting too deeply, but none of it had been hands on and there was only so much one could learn from a hastily printed internet diagram of a deer broken up into dotted lines. Erwin wasn’t entering a grillmaster competition and no one would be quizzing him on how to tell the difference between a filet and a sirloin, but he did want to ensure that what he put into their storage containers was actual meat rather than fat and gristle.

Levi picked his way carefully into the water, but it never seemed to rise around him. The riverbed was comprised of large, slippery stones and water foamed briskly around the drake’s ankles, less than ten inches deep even towards the center where Levi found a section he could actually climb out onto. He sank into a careful crouch, minding his footing as he reached out and wet his hands, raising them first to his face.

Erwin realized that he was staring after all and reminded himself that there was a lot to do. He’d spread their extra tarp alongside his workspace so he could move cuts of meat aside without putting them directly onto the ground, but the whole project was turning into a bloody mess anyway. He hadn’t expected it to be easy, but at the same time he also hadn’t realized that carving meat from a whole animal could be so difficult. He got up and removed the top of his racing leathers almost right away, leaving him shivering in just the liner with its sleeves pushed up past his elbows. As the blood on his forearms chilled, so did he, and his fingers were numb by the time he had enough to fill their containers. Levi finished with the river long before that point, unzipping the tent and rolling out their sleeping bags inside, then disappearing into the woods for a long time on what turned out to be a firewood expedition.

“Things are wet,” he told Erwin on his return, ducking into the tent to drop the wood beside their heater, which doubled as their little cook stove. “Are you finished setting up the chimney pipe?” he asked. “I’m going to be freezing my ass off when I get back.” On the outside of the tent, he straightened and brushed his hands together rather than wipe them on the fresh liner he was walking around in.

“You’re not already freezing your ass off?” Erwin asked him without looking up. He jumped when a pair of frigid lips brushed over the back of his neck.

“What do you think?”

“Go ahead and go in. I’m almost done here.”

“I won’t want to come back out here once I’m settled,” Levi replied, his cold fingers sliding beneath Erwin’s arms where there was still some warmth to be found. “Even for cow. We need more wood, anyway. Shit is hard to find.”

“It won’t matter if it’s a little damp.” Erwin pressed his arms against his sides, trapping Levi’s fingers where he’d tucked them. “If you ignite them from your dragon form, the oils from your flame bladder will burn.”

“Hm … true.” Levi reached around Erwin, nabbed one of the smaller cuts of meat from the tarp, and shoved the entire thing into his mouth as he stood. “Be back,” he said--or that was what Erwin thought he said. It was hard to tell around his mouthful.

Erwin packed both containers as full as he could get them and still get the lids on. Once he set aside his portion for the evening and the next morning, the majority of the cow still remained for Levi to consume in his dragon form when he got back to camp. After that he went to the river to rinse his hands and arms, scrubbing dirt and sweat from his face while he was at it. It was as close as he was willing to get to a wash. He was still rinsing blood from beneath his fingernails when Levi returned with his last armful of wood--enough to keep them perfectly toasty through the remainder of the evening and well into the night.

“You finished?”

Erwin nodded. “Eat what’s left on the tarp first. I want to go ahead and rinse it off so it can dry overnight.”

“Where is yours?”

“Already in the tent.”

Levi didn’t need any more prompting than that. He shifted immediately into his natural form, turning his formidable head sideways so he could snap up the pieces left over from Erwin’s carving. The drake was a tidy eater, his tongue flashing cobalt blue as it caught any excess blood before it could fall. The color was more vibrant in his natural form than it was when he was human. His carryovers tended more towards black than blue, though his tongue was the notable exception. Erwin gathered the tarp as Levi ambled over to start on the rest of the cow, carrying the whole sheet over to the river and reaching over to plunge it in. He gave it a little swish, letting the water take everything away, then held up the final product to inspect before he was satisfied that it had all come clean. When he turned, Levi was still picking carefully at the cow, obviously trying to figure out how to eat it without messing up his face.

“There’s a river right here you can clean up in.”

The drake just looked at him flatly.

“Whatever floats your boat. I’ll be inside.”

Levi turned and spat a mouthful of fire at the rock circle Erwin had prepared, leaving him to sort out for himself how to transfer the oily fuel to their tent stove without setting himself or the campsite on fire. He finally decided to take the sliding pan from the bottom of the stove and load it up outside, carefully transferring some of the viscous substance from their fire to the pan by scooping it out with the end of a thicker branch. He’d never looked so closely at the substance that dragons produced. It looked like it might be clear, like petroleum jelly, only it glowed white-hot with the incredible force of its burning. Erwin was more than mindful of what it had done to his lawn as he eased slowly into the tent, sliding the tray slowly back into the stove despite the way his fingers burned. Even all the way across the tray, dragon fire was nasty business. He sat down before the stove and fed it until he had to close the oven door on all the smoke.

“It’s burning,” he couldn’t help but tell Levi, who hadn’t given up his attempts at table manners. He was doing pretty well, all things considered, though his front feet were a mess. He didn’t appear to care so much about that so long as his face remained tidy. One enormous eye slid over to Erwin, then up to the narrow pipe that channeled smoke from their tent, but that was all. He was hard to read when he had half his head inside of a bovine, especially once he froze in place so that Erwin wouldn’t witness any impolite flesh-tearing. “Our stove works.” He hadn’t realized how little he trusted it until the thing was lit and their tent was still in tact, but he supposed the latter accomplishment could still go badly. He glanced over his shoulder like he expected to find flames leaping from the small, round belly, but everything was operating as it should be and he was surprised at how warm his face felt when he turned. “You’ll be pleased to know that it puts out a lot of heat.”

Erwin ducked back into the tent so Levi could finish eating without being stared at. He had his own food to cook, in any case. The cook pan that came stored inside of the stove actually sat on top when it was time to use it, so it sat out with one of his cuts of meat already waiting there in the bottom. He had to admit as he slid it onto the stove that it would be much easier to do as Levi did and forego the cooking altogether. He didn’t know if he could cook meat in a pan without burning it, but the hazards of eating raw beef were too well-ingrained for him to abandon them for the sake of convenience.

Levi was still eating when Erwin came out several minutes later with a hot pan and a utility knife. The dragon paused again like he was going to stop eating, but Erwin only waved him off. “I’m about to eat a large slab of meat with a knife and my fingers, so we’ll just be savages together.” He put the pan down on a bare patch of earth and stuck his knife into it pointedly. The meat was a little overdone for his taste, but it wasn’t raw, nor was it burnt, so he considered that a success. It could have used some steak seasoning, but it wasn’t a meal replacement bar so he only considered that briefly before dismissing the thought. They could have seasoning when they got back.

After a moment, Levi tugged up on the cow, grumbling low in his throat when a tendon snapped with a wet pop.

“I was just in there up to my elbows,” Erwin told him. “I’m very aware of what’s in a cow.”

Levi ate a little less tentatively after that. He still picked his way through it, shifting to one side to casually block Erwin’s direct view with his shoulder, but he wasn’t so shy about the sound effects that accompanied his eating. When he was through, he took himself over to the river to wash up.

“You’re like a giant scaly raccoon,” Erwin noted, finishing up his own food as he watched Levi rinse the blood from his nose and feet. His portion had been too large, but he made himself finish it, knowing that he needed the calories. As he joined Levi on the bank to clean the knife and pan, the drake returned to his human form with a hard shiver. “We have time tonight for me to teach you some first aid.”

“From the tent, I hope.”

“Yes, definitely from the tent.”

 

**************

_December 4_

**************

Erwin woke too early the next morning, roused by his bladder and kept awake by his mind. Internal organs--they could be such a nuisance. He was all hung up over the idea of Canada. They weren't far in yet, but by afternoon they would be. He had no illusions about the way Levi would fly when he wasn't concerned about making one of their meal bars last, and he thought they would be far enough by lunch for Levi to disappear into the wilderness quite soundly if that was still what he wanted.

There wasn't anything of Levi to see in the dark. He was completely buried in his sleeping bag, his head--hair and all--perfectly cocooned in the bundle of fabric. At some point during the night, he’d wedged his back against Erwin’s side, putting the detective’s arm to sleep where his weight pressed in on it. He'd also gotten ahold of a saddlebag, somehow, and had dragged it over the spot where his head would be, which also happened to be just under Erwin's chin. The detective had awoken with a zipper pressed into the underside of his jaw, wondering in a vague half-sleep what was wrong with his face. If he reached up, he could still feel the slight indentation, but he didn't move. He just lay there in the dark and listened closely for the faint sounds of another living creature breathing beside him. Levi even grumbled in his sleep, though he wasn't quite speaking. Erwin didn't know how else to define the unhappy sounds he made when Erwin took the bag from his head and moved it to some lower part of the drake. He grunted quietly, shuffling around in his sleep like he was seeking out the lost weight resting on his face.

“Wha’ happen?” he slurred, coming awake briefly to feel around in the dark.

“I woke up with a zipper fused to my cheek.”

“A zipper?”

He rolled over and worked his way beneath the edge of Erwin’s sleeping bag, burrowing like a mole, and he was asleep again before Erwin could reply.

The detective never made it back to sleep. He lay awake watching the blackness around him dim and lighten, considering what he might say to explain Levi's loss in a way that wouldn't prompt anyone to go looking for him. He'd have to say he died, for sure. There were plenty of ways to die in the wilderness, though he'd also have to explain why he was fine and why they couldn't recover a body. Maybe he fell into a lake. A river, even. There were a good many fast-moving rivers to choose from. They could find a likely spot--a violent section full of rapids, and Levi could drop Erwin off. He'd about decided on the river option when it was time for him to get up. He eased himself off of Levi, pulling on the fresh pair of socks he'd kept in the sleeping bag with him and moving over to the camp stove to see if it had gone cold. The tent was certainly chilly enough that it was likely, but there were still a few stubborn embers clinging to life at the very bottom of the grate.

Carefully, Erwin coaxed the fire back to life, doing his best to keep the crumbling wood from falling into its own ashes. It was the smell of food cooking that roused Levi, though he scrunched his nose and pulled the sleeping bag across his face.

“Gross.”

“Mine doesn't bleed on me while I'm trying to eat it,” Erwin pointed out. “Good morning.”

“Good morning.” Levi grumped, wiggling farther into his sleeping bag. “Is there any in here that you haven't ruined yet?”

“I left everything outside the tent. It would have spoiled overnight with the stove lit.”

Levi looked at the stove like it had wronged him deeply, then dragged the sleeping bag back over his head and didn't say another word until it was time to pack the tent away and move on.

“Do you want to sleep in today?” Erwin asked. “We’re far enough ahead to spare an hour.”

“No sleeping in,” the drake grumbled. Still, he waited until the very last minute to slither out of the sleeping bag, letting Erwin finish his breakfast before he reemerged to put on his boots.

“Don't overdo it today,” Erwin sighed, watching the fluid shift from human to dragon as Levi changed. Erwin got a snort for his trouble, but it sounded more irritated than agreeable. “I think the cold makes you grouchy.”

Levi's head was already down, delicately picking his way through breakfast, but he spared a deep, rumbling growl for Erwin, who laughed as he set about packing their things. Overall, the mood that morning was the lightest it had been since before the race started. They were okay on food for the rest of the afternoon and if they had to eat protein bars for the next couple of days, they had a substantial meal to keep them going.

When he finished with the cow, Levi flew down river with the remains looking for a deeper spot to drop them. Erwin was finished before he got back, even carefully mussing the ground around their campsite so that it was barely obvious they'd been there. He couldn't do much to cover the spot where the cow had been, but hopefully by the time anyone noticed it was missing and came looking, all of that evidence would be gone too.

Erwin had been correct in assuming that Levi would take the morning quickly. They’d pressed so far north by the time they stopped for lunch that the morning never seemed to warm into afternoon, setting a new standard for the daytime temperatures they could expect to see. Erwin pulled his hat out before they ate, pulling it down over his ears so it would sit under his wind hood without getting in the way. Levi dove into his winter coat as soon as they landed, pulling the furry hood around his face as he walked around looking for a spot of sunshine along the riverbank they'd been following all day.

“You don't want to bathe before we eat?” Erwin asked, earning himself an especially sour look from the circle of fur.

“Anything I put in that river would freeze right off,” the dragon predicted, and Erwin had to agree that the statement probably wasn't that overdramatic, considering how far they'd flown and how quickly the temperature had plummeted. The sky overhead was a dull, uniform gray and there wasn't a trace of sunlight to be found along the rocky shore that Levi patrolled. Finally, he gave up and came to huddle by the fire that Erwin was trying unsuccessfully to build, but the ground was damp and their tinder wasn't catching.

“Move,” the drake barked, and Erwin took one look at his expression before grabbing both of their saddle bags and dragging them away from the little teepee of damp twigs he'd put together from the forest behind them. Levi shoved his coat into Erwin's hands as he passed, shifting quickly into his dragon form and spitting once at the dead branches. His aim was very precise. He was back before the detective had a chance to straighten out the coat, grabbing it from Erwin and shrugging back into it as quickly as his chilly limbs would allow.

“Thank you.”

Levi glanced at Erwin and nodded tightly. “Is this the arctic circle?” he asked, shifting closer to their fire like the oily smoke billowing from the damp wood didn't matter. Erwin didn't want to tell him that this was barely below freezing and that the arctic would be so much colder that even Erwin could not imagine it. _It’ll be colder than a walk-in freezer,_ Mike had laughed. _Colder than any northern winter you’ve ever seen._

“This is British Columbia.” God, they hadn't even really gotten into the mountains yet. How was Levi going to maintain a functional temperature? Erwin pulled the last of their meat from his bag and there was little chance that it had spoiled. He separated the portion he was going to cook and passed the rest to Levi, who barely made a face at the idea of cooking the meat. He was done before Erwin finished preparing his own food, huddled up against the man’s side and interfering with the process somewhat, seeing as he'd decided that the fur on Erwin's own hood was exactly what he needed to cover the tiny sliver that remained of his face. Still, Erwin had little to say about it. He hadn't asked anyone what happened to a dragon when they got too cold, but Hanji made it sound very reptilian, the way a lizard becomes less active in the winter. If Levi became similarly immobile they would both probably die.

“Levi, what would you do if you lived up here? Could you survive this?”

“I would have to sleep through it, but I wouldn't die if I found the right place.”

“Would you prefer that to living with me?” Erwin asked. He felt Levi still. “We're far enough north now that you could make an easy escape if that's what you want. You could be absolutely free up here.”

“Is that what you would prefer?”

“It isn't about what I would prefer.”

Levi sat up, braving the cold to scowl at Erwin. “It is, though. I can't ask you to keep fighting for me unless having me with you is something you want. Otherwise, wouldn't that be selfish?”

“It would also be selfish to say that I want you to stay if that isn't what you would choose for yourself.” Erwin sighed, momentarily ignoring the fact that he could see his breath in the air. “I worked so hard because I wanted you to have the opportunity to decide on your own what you wanted.”

Levi lifted his chin, a stubborn challenge in his eyes. “What if I want to come back to your house and eat all your blueberries and hog the remote and put a hundred teacups in that empty curio cabinet in the living room?”

“It wouldn't hold a hundred,” Erwin warned him. “But if you’d rather do that than live up here, then of course I'd want the same.”

Levi's expression grew cautiously exasperated. “So we’ve established, then, that I don't want to go and you don't want me to leave?”

“I’d call that an accurate statement if you would.”

Levi huffed irritably. “Then there's no point carrying about it like daft old men.”

And that being said, he put his nose back into Erwin's hood.


	32. Bodies of Evidence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erwin and Levi start to get a feel for the Idrarod's darker side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure how well this reads because I was half asleep writing it and half awake editing it. A friend and I are doing a write-in this weekend so the idea is to keep each other awake and productive--forcibly if necessary. 
> 
> **And if you have been/were talking to me on Tumblr or Twitter I only just now regained access to those accounts after [insert long story here]. I was gone for approximately 58 days according to my activity thingy on Tumblr but it was a password issue please don't hate me. Pokemon Go broke my phone.

**************

_ December 5 _

**************

The Idrarod could not remain as simple as it was. It was something they hadn’t talked about--the way their problems so far had been mundane and easily anticipated. Cold and hunger were risks that awaited any party that flew north to camp, especially on survival-style trips where hunting was a necessity. Mike and Nanaba did something very similar on occasion. Willingly. They had assured Erwin that if one knew what they were doing, the risk was minimal. 

And then there was the Idrarod, which had never been described by anyone as a minimal risk. Cold and hunger were lethal obstacles, but they couldn’t account for the astronomical death toll at the end of every race. Everyone else had trained all year for the Idrarod, so if cold and hunger were the only dangers ahead of them, it should logically follow that more riders would breeze through each year. The fact that they didn't spoke of something else that could not be trained for. There was something else out there. Perhaps the long period of peace was meant to get the racers into a comfortable mindset before the rug came tearing out from under them, but it had the opposite effect on Erwin, who found himself waiting suspiciously for the other shoe to drop. 

“Fly carefully,” he’d said to Levi as they left that morning. “If you see anything that doesn’t look right, turn back and land.”

“You think it will get worse than this?” the drake had asked. 

“I don’t know. So far, does all this this seem as hard as it should be?” 

“You aren’t carrying an entire homestead on your back,” Levi had grumbled, but he didn’t tell Erwin that he thought he was wrong. Perhaps he was waiting, too. 

That morning was a rinse and repeat version of all the mornings before--a quick, hard flight followed by a brief lunch followed by more flying. Erwin was getting comfortable in the saddle. His back was still an unholy mess, but he was learning slowly how best to hold it. Perhaps there were even new muscles developing in there somewhere. Erwin had kept himself in good physical condition throughout his career and he was a far cry from being out of shape, but he was learning quickly that the muscle he needed for law enforcement was not the same muscle he needed for endurance riding. 

It helped that Levi had fallen into a much more manageable pace for both of them. He would fly at top speed in shorter bursts, slowing down at intervals to give them both a break. Erwin was able to sit up without being blown from the saddle and Levi was able to keep pace indefinitely, pulling them steadily ahead of the riders behind them. Late in the afternoon was easiest, when Levi was beginning to feel slow and relaxed. That evening, the drake found a long ravine that was putting off a lot of heat, opening his wings and coasting lazily into the rising thermal. He’d be taking them down soon to make camp, so Erwin didn’t expect any more gruelling sprints. He pushed himself upright with a sigh of relief, his back throbbing as he raised his arms over his head to stretch the sore muscles. They’d come a long way. He’d seen snow along the higher points of the terrain beneath them and tucked away into the shady spaces where sunlight could not reach. He wondered if Levi had noticed it yet, smiling to himself as he grabbed one elbow to pull it across his chest.

The timing couldn’t have been worse. 

Levi lurched abruptly sideways, stopping so quickly it was like he’d hit an invisible wall. He seemed to just fall out from under Erwin, tipping into a sharp, scrabbling turn as his wings churned the air into a violent riptide of tearing wind. Erwin felt himself slide, the saddle rolling sickeningly beneath him as he lost his seat and felt certain for one weightless moment that he was falling. Then, the sling on the far side caught his leg, wrenching him back against the saddle. He pushed down with his shin on the near side, bearing hard into the shin guard as he bent at the waist and managed, somehow, to find a handhold in the dizzying rush of nauseating color. He didn’t try to right himself. He just pulled himself tight to the leather beneath him and held on with everything he had. 

“Levi!”

Erwin could feel how quickly they were plummeting, the drake taking them down so quickly that there was hardly any way to know if they were landing or falling. Erwin felt like he’d left his stomach somewhere far over their heads, but when he opened his mouth to call a second time, his mouth filled with air and it was impossible. There wasn’t a thing in the world he could do except close his eyes and wait for impact. 

The landing was hard, and it hurt, but it didn’t kill them. Levi landed on his feet, staggering several paces as the momentum caught up to him and he beat his wings hard to stop. The detective was out of the saddle before Levi could move to shake him loose, landing inelegantly on the uneven terrain and turning his ankle over a rough stone. His legs went out from under him and he went down on his elbows, but that was solid earth beneath him and dull evening sunlight above him and he was dizzy with adrenaline, but alive.

“Levi,” he called shakily, turning his head sideways to see the drake ducking from beneath the saddle and batting the myriad of straps away like a handful of flies. “What happened?”

Levi didn’t answer. He made it several feet in the opposite direction before hitting his knees and pitching forward to lose a stomach full of water over the rocky ground beneath him. Erwin scrabbled to his feet, dragging his aching body over to where Levi was bringing up a second helping of mostly-clear stomach contents. His elbows were shaking when Erwin’s arms came around him to pull him away from the mess, and he sagged weakly over the man’s knees as they settled. 

“What is this?” Erwin demanded. “Are you alright?”

“There are dead dragons ahead,” Levi answered unsteadily. “I'm sorry, Erwin, it caught me off guard. I almost …”

It was impossible that dead dragons could come as a relief, but it did. Erwin pressed his hand between the drake's shoulder blades, aware for the first time of his own beating heart. It was wild in his chest, refusing to calm. “I thought you were in trouble.”

Levi barked a startled-sounding laugh, his small ribs heaving over Erwin’s thighs. “I thought  _ you  _ were.” He got his hands beneath him and pushed himself upright. “I'm sorry,” he said again. “The smell didn't register at first. I … think I might have been smelling it for miles, but when it hit me it was startling.”

“No harm done,” Erwin assured him. “We're all in one piece.”

“Still, I can't be jumpy like that while I'm carrying you. I almost killed you.”

Erwin shook his head. “I wasn't in the safest position when it happened, so I had a hand in that as well. Or didn't, as the case may be.”

It took him a second, but Levi snorted. 

“How many dragons?” 

“A lot. It's more than I've ever smelled in one place, including the stable.”

It made a horrible kind of sense. What better obstacle to face than centuries of natural instinct? He reached around Levi to rub at the tense knot of muscle between his shoulder blades and the drake leaned forward onto his hands, letting his head bow. 

“Stay off my neck or we’ll be stopping here tonight,” he warned Erwin. 

“Do you want to stop here? We can tackle this in the morning when we're not on a schedule.” 

But Levi shook his head quickly. “I don't want to camp downwind of that. I can taste it in my mouth.”

Erwin took a deep breath in, but couldn't smell a single thing on the cold mountain air. Had Levi not said anything, he wouldn't have had any idea what lay ahead. “We need to go soon, then, if we want to clear the area by nightfall. You'll be able to fly over?”

“Of course,” Levi huffed. “I have the advantage there, don't I?”

“Your reaction--”

“--was surprise. I wasn't expecting bodies, that's all.”

“Neither was I,” Erwin admitted. “I expected them to make this race as difficult as they could, but I didn't imagine they'd go to the trouble or expense of relocating all those dragons here.”

Levi shook his head. “This is more than difficult. Most of the others won't make it past here even with a year of training behind them. It isn't something that can be trained away. It either grows into you or you force your way through it.”

“When you put it that way, it seems heavy handed for the first obstacle.”

“Unless the ones after this one are worse.”

“Or they want to make us think they're worse. A large part of survival is mental and that is something we  _ can  _ control. So, one step at a time. How do you feel?”

“Like shit, but ready to get the hell out of here.”

“Stay put for a second. There's one more thing.” Erwin stood, picking his way carefully over the uneven stones towards their hastily abandoned saddle. His ankle throbbed unpleasantly, but it didn't feel serious. He suspected that he had his stiff boots to thank for that. Rather than try and carry everything back to Levi, he simply grabbed the canteen and hobbled back. “Hydrate.”

“You're kidding me.”

“You just vomited twice.”

Levi took the canteen, unable to argue with that when Erwin had seen it happen right in front of him. He swished the first mouthful for a long moment before leaning sideways to spit. “My mouth tastes like an asshole. Why do humans vomit?”

“Dragons don't?”

“Dragons  _ can't.”  _

“What if you're poisoned?” Erwin asked, and Levi gave him a funny look. 

“If you're poisoned and you can't vomit, how does your body compensate?”

“We just vent a portion of our flame bladder back into our stomachs. Most poisons are destroyed and we can expel them as smoke.” He tipped his head back and sipped obligingly from the canteen. 

“So you vomit smoke.”

“We don't vomit.”

“You just used the word  _ expel _ . Drink more of that.”

“It's not the same thing,” Levi insisted, taking another deep swallow without remembering to be difficult about it. 

“Unfortunately, humans were not blessed with any natural form of internal combustion, so we have to make do with the lesser alternative.” He stood, reaching to pull Levi to his feet. “We’ll need to take this slowly. Don't blow through at top speed and if you see anything or I signal, turn back as soon as you safely can. If there's room for us to skirt around the worst of it, we should aim to do that since we don't know what being in the thick of it will do to you.”

Levi nodded tightly, straight back to business. “Ready?”

“I am.”

The drake shivered when he returned to his natural form like the smell was stronger to him that way, but he didn't seem any more affected than most humans would be with sewage under their noses. He obviously didn't enjoy it, but it wasn't psychologically crippling either. Initial shock over, perhaps it would be as easy for Levi as he claimed. Erwin saddled him as quickly as possible, mindful of their small ration of daylight, and swung up to meet the drake when he bent at the elbows to let the detective up. 

Levi used the edge of the ravine to take off, leaping over the sheer edge rather than waste energy trying to get the lift he needed by surging straight into the air. It was more than a little horrifying, diving over the lip of a cliff, but Erwin had been ready for a much rougher ascent and he had a firm grip on the drake even before he realized what was about to happen. For all the fuss, Erwin's stomach fell farther than they did. Levi's wings caught them almost immediately and then they were up, gaining altitude in seconds as they slid back into the thermal they'd been riding. 

It was a credit to Levi's senses how far ahead of them the carnage actually was. It was many miles before Erwin smelled anything at all, and then it was so faint he wondered if he was imagining it until they passed over a small rise and a crumbling town spread out beneath them. It was clear on first glance that it was abandoned. Main Street had been colonized by a persistent carpet of greenery, swallowing sidewalks and pavement so that the rotten buildings appeared to be swimming in forest. Trees were popping up in places they would never have been allowed--in the middle of someone's living room, for example. Some were large enough around to suggest that they were a decade old at least. Levi slowed as they neared it, banking gently to make a circle around. Below them, nothing stirred, and when Erwin did not signal, the drake moved on. 

The bodies weren't far beyond that. They lay along a semi-clear corridor that was once a road, nestled into the deep furrow at the base of the hill. 

“Oh,” Erwin said reflexively, reaching up to pull his scarf up over his nose. The smell hit him so hard it made him dizzy, his throat closing like it wanted to protect itself. There were hundreds of them. Erwin couldn't begin to estimate a number from the massive heaps of discarded flesh and bone. He saw all stages of decay down there, from bare, bleached skeletons to bodies so new they didn't appear to be rotting, though none of those were pristine. The stomachs were carved out, their insides gone like they'd been fed on by wildlife. From the air he only saw birds and dark blankets of insects, but Erwin was willing to bet the bears around here were fat and happy all year round. 

The little beacon on his wrist let out a shrill electronic beep and when Erwin looked down there was a solid red line flashing at him along the path ahead. It gave him pause because he hadn't seen it yet, only heard about it in the orientation meeting. 

“Levi, turn back!”

They banked just in time. It was gentler than the turn that had almost dumped Erwin out of the saddle, but not by much. Levi responded quickly to the urgency in his rider’s tone, sweeping around in a startled arc and heading back the way they came. The red line on Erwin's beacon stopped flashing, but it did not fade. They were boxed in. 

The minute they were safely on the ground, Levi's head swung around to look at Erwin with an eye the size of a tennis ball. 

“Get out of the open,” Erwin urged him, looking around at the strange, overgrown town without trusting any of it. Levi trotted into a narrow alley between a general store and a pharmacy, hopping over a pile of grassy rubble that looked like a combination of roofing tile and soggy wood. “Our corridor narrows down to that one point and stops abruptly. We almost overshot it.” He turned his wrist so the drake could see what he meant, staring down the alley without seeing it. “Did you see anything from the air? Like a cave or a tunnel, maybe?”

Levi shook his head. 

“I didn't either, but there has to be something. They're forcing everyone to go through instead of around. Can you fly lower?” 

The dragon huffed unhappily, but he nodded again, pressing his nose into Erwin’s thigh. 

“You saw the color of beacon, right?”

Levi blew a hot stream of air into Erwin's leg. 

“We're in an area they won't evacuate us from. That could either be a psychological game they're throwing in to make the bodies harder to deal with or it could be a genuine threat.”

Levi nodded again, tipping his head down the alley. 

“Yeah, we can go. Take it slow so I have time to signal.”

Erwin kept a close eye on the beacon as they moved, dividing his attention between the map and the world it represented. Levi hung low and took them close enough to the ground that they could see everything in vivid, unfortunate detail. Through the scarf, Erwin could smell it in unfortunate detail as well and he hadn't been the one who’d known for miles what was here. 

The door they were looking for was right at the margin of their corridor, nestled almost invisibly amongst the bodies of the dead. It was just a simple wooden frame, narrow and roughly weathered and gray with age. It looked like the kind of place that should have warning signs posted by the entrance. 

“Got it!” Erwin called out, and almost immediately, Levi rose, veering around to head back to the edge of town. There was no way to land close to the door without tripping over at least three or four corpses--something that had probably been intentionally orchestrated. Simply flying over the field wasn't challenging enough. Evidently they had to walk through as well. 

Erwin slid from Levi's back as soon as they touched down, motioning for the drake to follow him back into the thick vegetation around the side of the general store. 

“It doesn't look like we’ll be going around,” Levi stated dully. He stepped out of the saddle and kneeled to unhitch their bags. “What was that?”

“It looked like a mine shaft, but it could be a cave they reinforced. There's no way to know until we go in.”

“I won't fit through the door as a dragon. Will I fit in the mine itself?”

“Maybe,” Erwin answered doubtfully. “Likely not.” He lifted the bag closest to himself and slid his arms through the thick straps. “Have you been taught to fight with a knife?”

“Of course.”

“I'll carry the saddle, then, if you take the knife. One of us needs to be armed.” The knife they used to carve meat was longer, but the thick, serrated blade on the utility knife made it a sturdier weapon. Levi took it from the sheath strapped to Erwin's thigh, his other hand resting briefly on the detective’s hip. 

“They don't teach you how to use one of these in detective school?” 

“They teach us how to disarm a person carrying a knife, but there wasn't much detail beyond that.”

Levi's eyebrows drew together. “I want to teach you, then. If knives are all you have, then you need to know how to use knives.”

“It's beginning to look that way, isn't it?” Erwin tapped the red-tinted beacon on his wrist, his blunt fingernail clicking quietly on the plastic face. It was a half-conscious gesture. His eyes were focused down the short alleyway rather than on his wrist, his thoughts hung on the image of all those bodies. “Did you see any other roads on your way around the field?” 

“No, but I wasn't looking for any.”

“I don't recall seeing any road but this one.” Erwin stepped over their bags and back out into the sunny path of undergrowth that ran directly through the center of the town. His eyes scanned up the road, looking with fresh eyes. “Some of those corpses looked pretty fresh, so if they were placed there, it had to be recent. Right before the race would make the most sense.”

“I guess.”

Erwin turned a slow circle in the tall grass, which was almost knee-high on him and mixed with a good helping of other low-lying foliage. “There are no signs of use here. The equipment they would need to move an adult dragon would have flattened all of this, but it hasn't been disturbed for at least a growing season. I don't know of any helicopter that could take the weight, either.”

“What's a helicopter?”

“One of the devices humans have come up with to compensate for their lack of wings.”

“Ah.” Levi looked up the road thoughtfully, picking up on Erwin's train of logic and moving along to the most obvious question. “Is there something underground that could kill so many of us?”

“If conditions are right, a human could. That cave or mine--whichever it is--may force you into your human form. If you tried to change back underground, you wouldn't simply break through the wall like you would in a house. The tunnels will have solid earth around them, so you'd be crushed before they gave way.”

Levi grimaced at the thought. “Who would be down there? A race official?”

“It can't be. They have to abide by the same laws we do. Murder is illegal whether we're racing or not.”

“Not if they're only killing the dragons,” Levi pointed out, his expression unchanging. “Killing a dragon isn't illegal unless we belong to someone. And they have your waiver covering their asses for that.” He stuck the handle of the knife into his mouth and hoisted one of the bags onto his back. 

Unfortunately, that was true. “That's a likely assumption,” Erwin admitted, moving back into the alley to get his own gear together. “That would mean they'll try to separate us so they can target you without risking me. Have you ever fought alongside someone else?”

“As an ally?” Levi asked, startled by the question. “Not before the night those men followed us home.”

The outcome there hadn't exactly been ideal, but Erwin thought back over it, considering the way they'd worked together. Ultimately, there wasn't much to go on. They'd taken opposite sides of the house until the very end, at which point Erwin had been too out of it to pay much attention to how in sync they'd been. “Just focus on sticking close to me then. We shouldn't be more than a few feet apart down there, even when we think we're alone.”

“What if someone needs to take a shit?”

“Then we'll be all the more comfortable with each other when we leave. I'd rather watch you shit than give anyone an opportunity to get between us.”

“Romantic.” Levi caught the seat of the saddle as Erwin lifted, helping the detective settle it across his chest where he could use his body to stabilize some of the weight. Levi eyeballed him like he wanted to comment on the way it looked, but he never opened his mouth. He just turned back to the road and started walking. 

They pulled their scarves up around their noses on the edge of the field, but it didn't do them much good. The smell was enough to knock a person over with or without respiratory protection. 

“I'm going to be smelling this for the rest of the race,” Levi grumbled, batting swarms of flies away from his face. Erwin had never seen so many flies in his life. The air seemed to vibrate with them. He resisted the urge to swat them away from his own head even though he still wore his riding goggles over that awful BDSM dungeon-looking wind hood. Levi wasn't quite so well-equipped. They made it less than twenty paces into the mess before he stopped them so he could readjust his scarf, wrapping it around his head until he looked like he'd escaped from a hospital’s burn unit. Erwin returned Levi's earlier favor of not commenting. 

Levi chose their path for them, picking his way carefully around stray body parts and warning Erwin of each one. (“Step over that tail.” - “Watch the spines on this one.” - “Don't trip over the leg.”) The detective couldn't see the ground beneath the bulk of Levi's saddle so he appreciated the warnings. 

“None of the bodies have been thrown together,” Erwin noted, studying each dragon they passed and trying to determine where they all came from. “Look, they're spread out like they're being arranged.”

“Not the bones,” Levi added. He paused to point at one of the fresher dragons, which had been left atop a much older skeleton. “How many layers deep do you think they go?”

“I don't know. It probably depends on where they all come from. If the race officials transport them here from vet clinics and animal control, the number could be countless.”

“Well, if someone inside that tunnel is killing them, they're definitely good at what they do.” 

“A professional, maybe. Do you see any hint as to how they died?”

For several steps, Levi did not reply, but he slowed to look more closely at the dragons they passed, obviously considering the question. “They're too torn up. I can't really--Erwin.” Levi's pace abruptly quickened, startling a jolly flock of crows into a brief flight. “This one had his neck broken.” He pointed to a pattern of injuries along one of the bodies farther down the line. It had been distorted by time and by scavenging, but still clearly bore the marks of some very large teeth. 

“Unless a shark killed him, it looks like it was another dragon.”

Levi looked up at Erwin, scowling. “That's illegal isn't it? Fighting dragons?”

“It’s a gray area. It may not be strictly illegal for a dragon to kill another dragon, it is if it's organized into sport. This dragon could have come from anywhere, including a fighting ring bust like the one I was involved with, so it may not mean we’ll be attacked by dragons, but I can think of some loopholes that would make it possible.”

“Loopholes?”

“Yes, like if this area was designated a dragon preserve and we entered it, any deaths that result due to a territory or mating dispute are classified as natural behavior and left alone.”

“They can force us onto another dragon’s territory and call it natural?”

“I honestly don't know. The DCA has to be aware of it, though. There's no way with all of us passing through here every year that it hasn't been reported by someone.”

Levi had drifted a little farther ahead, leaning forward to look at  the swollen belly of another body. “This one was also killed. The dragon that attacked him what they were doing. They were looking to break the joint of the wing, which isn’t easy.”

“This didn’t happen underground, then,” Erwin said, looking around as though their surroundings might give something else away. “You need space for a fight like that.”

“Maybe they did come from a fighting ring,” Levi conceded, stepping away. 

“Do you feel alright? We can move faster if we need to.”

Levi shrugged. “I’m acclimating. We need the information more than I need to leave.” And he did seem perfectly fine as he advanced farther into the field. It was such a marked difference from Nanaba’s response--her near inability to function in the presence of less than a dozen bodies--that had Erwin realizing just how crippling this situation should be for Levi. It would hit their opponents the same way it hit Nanaba, and worse. Hanji had mentioned heart failure as a possible side effect of resisting the flight response. 

Then there was Levi, his face as passive as a statue’s. Acclimating. 

“Here.”

Erwin had seen it, too. The material was ruined by weather and decay, but that was unmistakably part of a racing saddle twisted beneath one of the bodies several rows back. They didn't need to get any closer to identify it. 

“What does that mean?” Levi wondered aloud, less alarmed than bemused. “Are they trying to tell us that we're actually  _ supposed  _ to attack each other despite what they said at orientation?”

“Officially, no.” Erwin wasn't sure how to read the situation, either. “But they didn't get that dragon from a fighting ring. It's possible they salvaged the body from an unrelated accident and brought it here with the others, but it could also be exactly what it looks like.”

“It looks to me like somebody's scrap heap,” Levi said bluntly. “So far I haven't found any harmless way that humans use us for entertainment. It's probably exactly as bad as we’re imagining.”

“For now, that would be the safest assumption to make.”

“And I was expecting the cold to be our biggest problem. We're too exposed dicking around out here. We're the only things larger than a bird that's moving.”

Levi was right. When they moved again, they moved quickly, having seen enough to satisfy them that they'd learned all they would learn. One body was as baffling as the next. There were no answers out there, only more evidence to support every potential scenario they'd come up with. The mouth of the tunnel was absolutely black. Erwin had thought that nights in the woods were black and that it could not get any darker, but there was light then. There had to be light because none of those nights were quite so dark as the hole they stood just outside of. He hadn't been aware that he did not know unbroken darkness until he found himself looking straight into it. 

“Shit,” Levi said for both of them. “How much kerosene did we bring?”

“We have kerosene and batteries,” Erwin said, turning so Levi could get to them inside the bag on his back. “But I still hope it's a short tunnel.”

“I could shift and get us started while I'm able.”

“It's too risky. If it's a mine there could be methane gas, maybe abandoned crates of dynamite.”

“What is dynamite?”

Erwin glanced back at Levi. “Explosive.”

“And methane?”

“Highly explosive.”

Levi sighed. “I hate mines.” He tucked one of their bright LED flashlights under his arm and went back in for batteries. “What is a mine, exactly?”

“Some valuable materials are found underground. Sometimes it's ores used in construction, sometimes it's other valuables like silver or gold or precious stones. Coal is a big one. It's burned for fuel. Mines are built for extracting these these things from the ground and transporting them to the surface. They're notoriously dangerous places to work, although modern technology has made them a little safer. This one doesn't look very new.”

“Please don't sugar coat the truth,” Levi grumbled. He zipped up their bag and unscrewed the flashlight like he'd been taught to do, scowling at the battery before showing it to Erwin. 

“That's the way it goes. No, the way you had it.” 

After a couple more moments of troubleshooting, the light winked on. Levi aimed the concentrated beam straight ahead, where it glinted dully off a wide metal cage. 

“It looks like a mine.”

“It's very small,” Levi answered doubtfully. 

“That's the elevator. The mine is below us.” 

The drake looked down in alarm, like he could see through the soil to the horrors beneath. “Why can't you mine things with the top off?”

“They do, sometimes. Strip mining is what it's called, but I'm not sure why they don't do them all that way. What is that?” Erwin nodded to the right, past a dusty control booth where he'd seen a black rectangle that looked like a door. When Levi raised the light, it touched a heavy wooden frame. “Maybe that's a supply room.”

They edged cautiously into the entryway, pausing by some mutual accord as they waited to see if someone would leap from the shadows and attack. But nothing moved. Levi eased up to the doorframe, knife raised and ready as he swept the light quickly through the room. Erwin got a brief impression of lockers, tools hung across one wall, stacks of crumbling crates and two long benches before the scan was complete and the room deemed empty. 

“This feels staged,” Erwin said, stepping farther into the room and letting Levi's saddle fall over one of the benches so he could pull the goggles down around his neck. “I doubt all this would still be here if this mine was a stop in every race. It'd be picked over by now.”

“It was nice of them to stage some of these, though.” Levi reached over to slip the knife back into Erwin’s sheath so he could take one of the pick axes from a rack on the the wall. He hefted its weight in his hand, turning to give the tool an experimental swing. It thrummed in the air with the force behind it. “I've never used anything like this, but I think I could learn quickly.”

Erwin reached for one as well, longing for the familiar weight of his sidearm on his hip. The prospect of encountering an enemy without it made him feel more than a little vulnerable, but the pick axe had a better reach on it than any of their knives and more penetrating power behind a good hard swing. He went to lay that on the bench by the saddle, then peeled the wind hood from his face and shrugged off his bag to tuck it away. “We should stop here for the night. We don't know what's waiting for us in the mine and I don't want to find out on zero sleep.”

“Do you think we’re safe here?” Levi asked, startled. 

“If there's someone else in the mine, they'll be down below. We haven't called the elevator yet so they won't know we’re here, but if it moves to bring them up we’ll hear it. If we sit along the left hand wall by the door, we’ll hear or see them step into the room before they notice us and we’d be behind them by then. Sleeping in shifts should be safe enough.” 

Levi glanced distastefully at the floor in question, but he passed Erwin the flashlight and went to drop his bag by the other one. 

_ “Smoking, lit matches, and other open flames are strictly prohibited,”  _ the detective read aloud with a laugh. “Don't snort too hard if you take your dragon form or you might blow us up.”

“I haven't done that by accident since I set your mattress on fire.” Levi kneeled to retrieve a couple of meal bars from their bag, leaving them on the bench by Erwin's pick axe and coming to stand at the notice board. “What are you doing?”

“Seeing if any of this is useful.”

“Is it?”

Erwin lifted one of the sheets of paper to look at the one beneath. “Not to us. It's all open enrollment and upcoming changes to company policy. Apparently they have a new system for clocking in. I wonder if they ever implemented it.”

“They still use this mine?”

“No, none of this is new. It looks like they left pretty quickly, but I don't know anything about mines. Hopefully it isn't toxic gas or anything like that because we don't have gas masks.”

“Would the race officials send us down here if there was toxic gas?”

“I can't imagine why they would, but I also didn't think they would barricade the entrance with a field of bodies, so it's probably safest now not to assume anything.”

“What do we do if there's something wrong down there?”

Erwin shook his head. “If it's gas, we can move slowly and keep a close eye on how we feel. If we notice anything odd, any lightheadedness or nausea, we turn back. That's the best we can do with what we have.”

“If it's other people, that would be best,” Levi said. “I know what to do about that.” He glanced briefly around the room, considering its size. “I could fit along this wall in my dragon form without being immediately visible,” he decided. “I'll take the first shift unless you want it.”

“I doubt I'll sleep any, either, but it's yours.” Erwin turned from the notice board and went to sit on the bench. “Do you mind eating in the dark? I want to conserve our batteries as much as possible.”

Levi shrugged slightly, moving quickly to join him. He passed one of the bars to Erwin and dragged one of the pick axes into his lap. “Alright, lights out.”

“I hope this mine is small,” the detective commented as they sat there listening to each other's foil wrappers crinkle in the dark. 

“It's probably enormous.”

“You're welcome to some of my optimism if you want to share.”

There was another shrug in his voice when Levi replied. “If I expect it to be enormous, what's the big deal when it is?” He balled up his discarded wrapper and the air shifted as he moved away from Erwin to change forms. 

“Is there any wall left over there?” Erwin asked. 

Levi grumbled low in his throat. It sounded almost like a growl, but not quite. 

“I'm turning the light on.” 

Erwin dragged their bags and saddle over to the opposite wall so they wouldn't be visible to someone entering the room, then stowed Levi's pick axe and took his own over to the drake, who had his neck turned so that his head lay over his back like a roosting bird. 

“Is that really comfortable?” 

Levi chirped a quiet affirmative. 

“I didn't realize you could make that sound.” Erwin nudged Levi’s shoulder until he lifted his wing out of the way, giving the detective room to sit. The drake held still until Erwin was settled against him, then the wing came back down to rest across his legs. Erwin shifted beneath the weight until it was more comfortably distributed, leaving the pick axe within easy reach. “Lights out?”

Levi made that new chirping sound again and sighed into Erwin's hair when the light went out. 

“At least it's warmer in here. It will be even warmer down in the mine itself. Temperatures tend to be pretty stable underground, so that's something.”

The juncture of Levi's front leg held Erwin's head quite comfortably. The detective closed his eyes, letting his hands wander over the web-like skin covering Levi’s wing. It felt paper-thin beneath his fingers, like it might tear if Erwin pressed too hard. This was an illusion, of course. Levi’s wings were scarred like the rest of him, but they were not delicate. 

“Wake me up after a while so you can sleep, too.”

Levi didn't.


	33. Earth Wyrm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erwin and Levi get their first look at the bottom of the mine, but they aren't alone for long.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The mining details in this chapter and the chapters to follow are a mix of prior knowledge, research and logical bullshitting. I'm also playing fast and loose with historical accuracy, so if you've had a mine tour or something just pretend that this is a very special and unusual mine that was designed by idiots (and then drop me a comment so I can fix it in the version that will be published).

**************

_December 6_

**************

“What time is it?” Erwin asked. It came out before he recalled that Levi wouldn't answer. The drake jumped under him--the barest twitch of muscle that told Erwin he must have woken without Levi noticing. “Sorry to startle you. You took the whole night, didn’t you?” He didn't feel well rested, but he also wasn't as tired as he should have been. If he’d taken a proper four hour shift he’d be feeling it more keenly around the eyes.

That time, when Levi moved beneath him it was distinctly different. The sensation was unsettling, feeling the drake shrink and soften in the dark, his arms sliding around Erwin's waist and across his sternum before they’d quite finished changing. “I've been well-rested,” he answered, his knee nudging into Erwin's rib cage as he settled behind the man, his change complete. “One night won't make a difference. Who could sleep in here, anyway?”

“Me, apparently,” Erwin replied drily.

“Yes, I could tell how deeply you fear death.”

“I was sleeping on an unbeaten fighting champion with a flame bladder larger than my head. Who would fear death?”

Levi pressed his mouth to the nape of Erwin's neck so the man could feel his smirk. “Anyone else, probably. It should be morning by now, but does it matter in here? If you're ready to move, I'm ready too.”

“Breakfast first.” Erwin shone their flashlight on the beacon, squinting at the sudden brightness. “It's four twenty-eight. It will still be dark outside, so we'll have a little head start on the day.”

“Good.” Levi stood, using Erwin's shoulders as a balance. “I've got to piss.” There was a slight strain in his voice as he spoke, like he was stretching. “Can I take the light?”

Erwin leaned over to pull one of the bags towards him, then passed the flashlight up. He made a challenge out of finding their protein bars in the dark by feel, first locating the correct pocket and then running his fingers over each item he encountered until he found the texture he'd been after. Producing two protein bars kept him busy until Levi returned, and then he passed them both to the drake and went to take care of his own business, wondering as he did so how many had the same idea before him.

“It feels wrong using the toilet inside,” he mentioned as he returned.

“I've been trying to explain that to you since before I was speaking.”

“It's different when you have a toilet. There's a place for it to go.”

“Yeah, there is, but that place isn't the house.”

They moved as they ate, putting batteries in a second flashlight and shoving their shiny new food wrappers into the bottom of a locker where they wouldn't be seen. Erwin pulled a hard hat from the wall, studied it briefly, then reached out and set it onto Levi's head. “They're made to protect the skull from falling rock. We should probably take the same precautions the miners would have.”

“You think that could happen?”

“I wouldn't assume it can't.” He took one for himself as well, twisting the headlamp to see if it worked. Unsurprisingly, it didn't. The batteries had probably corroded years ago. “That's probably for the best. It’d be hard to turn off quickly in a pinch.”

Levi didn’t have any trouble remembering to bring the pick axes. He passed the first one to Erwin and kept the second for himself, lifting his bag with the other hand. “You can’t keep carrying that saddle the way you did outside. It leaves you completely vulnerable.”

“Putting it over the bag would be just as bad. I’d be as top-heavy as a turtle and it’d be difficult to drop.”

They both stared thoughtfully at the object in question. It was only just larger than a horse’s saddle, but its bulky profile made it a challenge to work with. They hadn’t planned on a situation where one of them would have to carry both of their bags. The weight had been calculated with one bag apiece in mind, so having one person carry both wasn’t an option.

“We could hold it between us,” Erwin said finally. “It would evenly distribute the weight and we’d be able to drop it immediately if we encounter someone.”

Levi huffed. “This thing is more trouble than it’s worth.”

“I assure you, it isn’t.” Erwin was certain after experiencing saddle sores _with_ the extra padding that he didn’t want to know what life would be like without it.

“You’re saying you don’t want to ride me bareback, Erwin?” The question came out in a way that made Erwin doubt it was meant to be taken at face value. He squinted suspiciously at the drake, wondering if his friends really had enough time to give him so thorough an education. When had they done it?

“I don’t think I’d make it to the finish line without needing to visit the hospital,” he answered neutrally, determined to keep talking as though they were still discussing the saddle just to see what Levi would do with it.

“That’s flattering, but I’d be careful not to hurt you.”

They were definitely not discussing the saddle any longer. Levi trying to flirt was … crude, actually, but it warmed a small place in the back of Erwin’s mind that had been (if he was being honest) worrying about Levi’s final decision on the subject of mating.

“There are some kinds of pain I’d be happy to accept. Keeping the saddle is not negotiable, but if you’re determined to make my ass sore, I’d wear that for a few days.”

Levi’s flawless pokerface slipped. Erwin caught something like thrilled alarm before it was gone again and he was smiling, his eyes going wicked with mischief like Erwin had agreed to something that had really been on offer. And for a moment it was almost as though there was nothing terrible lurking beneath them.

Wondering if he could up the ante, Erwin kneeled slowly at Levi’s feet, his hand sliding absently over the saddle. “Ready?”

The drake’s lips parted in surprise--only just--but he caught on disappointingly fast, his eyes landing on Erwin’s hand and comprehending. “Ah. Yes,” he said, bending to lift beneath the pommel.

Just like that, it was all back. The threats and the uncertainty and the unfortunate necessity of focusing solely on their survival. Their teasing ended by mutual accord, and Erwin shone the light one more time around the room before they left it.

“The elevator will probably be loud enough to wake the dead,” Erwin said, turning the flashlight over to the various mechanisms that made it run. He had to put the saddle back down to look around, studying the bulky control panel on the wall nearby. There was no need for them to call the elevator. As it would happen, the cab was already sitting there on their level, waiting for the next set of passengers.

“Someone came up this way, but didn’t go back down. You can’t send these kinds of elevators away. They sit on the last floor they were called to.”

Levi glanced back towards the entrance, flicking his light on to inspect the grimy floor. He came forward a few paces, the toe of his boot scuffing at something he’d found. “It looks like old blood,” he decided, demonstrating with another scrape of his toe that the substance flaked up easily. Most paint wouldn’t have come off so readily. “It isn’t a lethal amount, though.” He followed the trail of small droplets towards the door before he decided that was where they led. “Maybe someone was hurt in the mine and they came back up this way hoping to be evacuated.”

Erwin nodded. “Perhaps so. The elevator would be at the bottom if they’d gone back in.”

“Or. Maybe it _was_ a race official moving a body outside.” Levi turned his light off and stuck it into one of the straps on his racing colors, lifting the saddle and stepping up to the elevator. “How do we get in this thing?”

“The old ones like this just pull open, I think.” Erwin tucked his own light under his arm with the pick axe so he could use both hands to grasp the cage. The metal needed oil and wanted to stick, but the outer door opened readily to the elevator cab inside. Erwin pulled those doors open as well, stepping cautiously inside. “There’s a lever in here to control the elevator. Small miracles.”

Levi joined him with the saddle, but let it slide to the floor so both his hands were free to swing the pickaxe at the first thing that moved at the bottom of the shaft.

“We need to move fast once the elevator touches down,” Erwin said, closing only the first set of doors behind them and leaving the elevator cab open. “We don’t want to be where the noise is in case someone else is down there. Ready? It will probably lurch.”

“I like your police elevators better,” Levi answered, spreading his feet for a more solid stance and reaching out to wrap his free hand around Erwin’s elbow. “Bring on the lurching.”

The elevator did lurch, but not before roaring loudly to life somewhere back in the vicinity of the control booth, which may have been a mechanical box now that Erwin considered it. There was a nasty jolt as they were yanked down a couple of inches, particles of dirt or rust raining down from the workings above. Levi’s fingers tightened briefly, but he let go when the cab settled into its unsteady, but less immediately terrifying pace. Human and dragon looked at each other.

“Do you think that stuff was supposed to come loose?” Levi asked, glancing up at the top of the cage.

“I’m trying not to wonder that, myself.”

“What if all of those dragons died in this elevator?”

“In their dragon forms?” Erwin asked skeptically. He pointed his flashlight at the rough stone scrolling jerkily by them, close enough to the outside of the cab that he wouldn’t want to risk sticking his fingers out there. _“Yo ho, yo ho, it's off to work we go.”_ By the time he got to the whistled portion of the tune, Levi was looking at him oddly. “Nanaba likes Disney movies,” the man shrugged. “It's relevant to our situation, just take my word for it.”

“What is Disney?”

“They make films for children, but adults enjoy them, too. I’ll tell you anything you want to know if you promise not to ask Nanaba that question.”

Erwin could see Levi making a mental note to ask her, which meant that if they survived they would find themselves at the preserve for two or three solid days watching every single one of the most classic Disney films in chronological order with feature commentary from Nanaba’s side of the room.

Beside him, Levi raised the axe, resting it lightly on one of his shoulders, and Erwin’s initial decision to leave the light on began to waver as the cab took them farther down.

And down.

And down.

And down.

Erwin switched the light off to save its battery.

“There isn’t a bottom,” Levi decided eventually. “We’re going straight to hell.”

“It is getting warmer,” Erwin agreed. “Or at least less frigid.”

Part of it was likely an illusion caused by the speed of the elevator, which made other elevators feel rocket-boosted by comparison, but Erwin suspected that was only half of the truth. Even at a snail’s creep, the mine was a long way down. It wasn’t as far as it felt, but it was far.

When the cab lurched to a clattering stop, neither of them had been prepared. In the dark, there was no telling when the ground was coming up and so Erwin jumped at the sudden change of direction. Beside him, he clearly heard Levi mumble the word, “Shit,” but the detective was clicking on the flashlight even as his heart continued to race, sweeping it quickly around them.

No one was immediately visible, but the tunnel ahead of them was short, splitting immediately into a left and a right turn. They only had the two options. There were no other doors along the rough walls that led them there. “Check corners,” Erwin said quickly, pulling the bottom gates open and reaching down to move the saddle just outside the elevator. He left it where it was for the moment, jogging to catch up with Levi and take the opposite side.

There was nothing to see in either direction except dark, empty tunnels. The murk stretched beyond the reach of their flashlights, giving the impression that it was endless. “There’s a track,” Erwin observed. “For mine cars. They loaded them up to move rock to the surface.”

“So the tracks lead out?”

“They should.” The walls were narrow, reinforced with thick wooden beams, but they were wide enough to accommodate a mine car on one side and a footpath on the other, too small for an average-sized dragon but possibly wide enough for Levi so long as he had no interest in turning around. “We need to leave.”

The drake nodded. He had a look on his face like the place smelled bad, but he followed Erwin back to the saddle and lifted his end. “Any guesses on which direction?”

“Go right. Most people are right handed, so they’ll naturally favor the right side when given the choice. This tunnel was probably dug first if it was an arbitrary choice on their part.”

“Huh. Well it’s more than I had. I was going to guess.” Levi turned right.  

“Do you smell death down here?”

“I do, but it isn’t strong. Most likely it’s coming down from the surface. It isn’t as bad as it would be if this was where they died.”

Erwin nodded. That was a good sign, but he wasn’t going to let it relax him. It may be important for them to worry. Worrying would make them cautious. So he didn’t say anything about it to Levi, he just kept moving at as fast a clip as he dared, pick axe tucked under the arm that carried their saddle. Less than fifty feet down the tunnel, their flashlight found the first break along the straight track they followed. It was a doorless frame made from the same heavy wood that reinforced everything else, but that was all either of them could determine simply by looking. Erwin cast a glance at Levi, who nodded, and they stepped together to the wall to lower the saddle carefully and listen.

For a long time, there was nothing but silence from the other side, then Erwin became aware of how quiet the mine really was. The elevator had masked it, and then their footsteps after that, but when they stopped and there was nothing else to listen to his ears--never before prone to tinnitus--rang faintly in the silence. He could hear Levi’s quiet, efficient breathing and the way his breath did not waver even poised outside of a potential trap. He met Erwin’s eyes and there it was, almost catching Erwin off guard with its intensity. He looked at Erwin like he’d never once defended his life in solitude, like it had always been the pair of them in tandem.

Erwin nodded once and Levi moved, sweeping around him with the pick axe ready to swing. He raised the light over the drake’s head, aiming it ahead of him and--

Levi let the pick axe fall to his side. “Is this a closet?”

Initially, Erwin thought so. It was the expected size of a closet and didn’t appear to serve any other purpose, but the walls made him hesitate. He reached out and tapped his finger against the smooth surface. Iron or steel. “I don’t know what this was for, but a lot of work was put into it for a closet.” His eyes fell to the only other contents of the room--a few low stacks of ruined crates.

“What do you think that is?” Levi stepped forward, obviously intending to find out if there was anything useful in the crates, but something about the situation and location niggled at Erwin enough to reach out and stop the drake.

“I’m no expert on antique explosives, but I saw a show once on Discovery where a few men were disposing of old dynamite by detonating it. They didn’t want to move it because something in the dynamite degrades over time and becomes unstable. Even opening the crate they were in could set the whole thing off.”

“What did they do?”

“I think they blew up the whole shed.”

“Holy shit.” Levi looked back at the detective, then at the crates on the floor, vaguely horrified. “Everything in here can kill us, even the shit that’s rotting into the floor.”

“It’s probably best not to touch anything we don’t recognize,” Erwin agreed. “Maybe that’s what this room was for. If I stored dynamite down here I would want it reinforced.”

“Jesus, you’re a dangerous species.”

“I won’t argue with you on that point. Let’s go.”

Erwin’s guess would have made sense as a one-time discovery. Another room or two just like it wouldn’t have been unusual, but every hundred feet or so at predictable intervals they found an identical room just like the first. Some had things inside--crates mostly, and assorted refuse--but most did not. They were just empty rooms, all steel reinforced.

“Refuge chambers,” he said suddenly.

“What?”

“In case of an explosion or cave-in, miners could duck into one of those reinforced rooms where their chances of survival might be greater.”

Levi sighed.

Somewhere far behind them, the elevator roared to life. They’d gotten a long way by then, but sound carried remarkably, terrifyingly well in the still air. Levi shot a look at Erwin. “What do we do?”

There wasn’t much _to_ do. It was a straight track from their position to the elevator and they didn’t appear to be going anywhere fast. It would take time for the new arrival to reach them, so they had a respectable lead, but Erwin didn’t like the thought of anyone behind them, particularly if it was someone who knew they had nothing to fear. They would move faster without stopping to check each room like Erwin and Levi were doing.

“We stay put,” Erwin decided, nodding to the last open doorway they’d cleared. “If it’s anyone we don’t recognize from the starting line, we hit them in the head and hope the mine is small enough that we’re out before they come to.”

“What if it isn’t small?”

“Then we’ll have at least bought ourselves enough of a head start to lose them again.”

They left their bags and saddle in the refuge chamber and stepped back out into the hallway to wait. Erwin stood with one hand on the doorframe so he wouldn’t lose it, reaching out to take Levi’s elbow with the other.

“Oh hell,” the drake grumbled. He looped his arm more firmly through Erwin’s like he thought he’d lose him in the dark, so the detective figured he realized what was coming. When he switched the light off, there was no surprise, just a softly uttered, “Fuck.”

Erwin had been in some dark places. Nights at home had been some of the darkest. When clouds blotted out the stars and the moon was new, the trees around him held the distant city lights at bay and it sometimes felt like his house had been moved all the way back to the beginning of time when there was absolutely nothing. He’d been seeing then, but he didn’t realize it. The surface of Earth was never truly absent of light. In the mine, it was disorienting to stand there with his eyelids peeled as wide as he could make them go and still see absolutely nothing. His body knew his eyes were open, but without the accompanying visual input he lost some sense of the space he occupied. He blinked, feeling oddly off-kilter.

“Who would create a place like this on purpose?” Levi whispered. “If I was meant to be crawling around underground I’d have been born a worm.”

Erwin choked on a startled laugh.

“What?”

“Wyrm. It’s the old English word for ‘dragon.’ You were born a wyrm.”

“Your word for dragon was _worm?_ How stupid were your ancestors?”

They both fell silent, though, as the elevator stopped. Somewhere on the surface behind them, the stranger or strangers would be stepping into the cage, getting the doors situated. The moment stretched.

“Are you sure it doesn’t just go back to the top?”

“Pretty sure. I don’t think these kinds of elevators were that sophisticated, but I could be wrong.”

A dull grinding sound overhead announced that the mechanism starting up again.

“Stay quiet starting now. I don’t know how far our voices carry down here.”

“Yeah,” Levi murmured back. He shifted beside Erwin in the dark, and without their voices they became just as strange and unfixed as they’d previously been, but closing his eyes helped. It matched sensation with expectation--eyes closed equalled darkness. The vague, off-kilter feeling subsided. Erwin pulled gently free of the drake’s stiff fingers and caught his hand instead, lacing their fingers together before tucking his arm back against his side. Levi’s nose bumped his bicep and he could hear the small inhale over the elevator’s descent.

It seemed like an eternity before the mine quieted again, and an eternity after that before there was any sign of movement from the direction they’d come. The light was visible long before they heard anything, the single point of a flashlight beam glinting towards them through the darkness. It would not touch them from where it was--not for a long while, so they watched it from far down the tunnel, silent and unmoving as statues. Erwin counted two of them--one carrying the light and one shifting occasionally through it, walking slow. The voices, when they reached them, were high and female, but they were speaking too quietly for the words to make sense.

When the pair disappeared into the first refuge chamber, Erwin felt a small, hopeful loosening in the backs of his shoulders. The pair moved with the caution of intruders, not with the confidence of people who knew a place well. They cleared each room as Erwin and Levi had, working their way up the long tunnel towards them until their voices were close enough to sound familiar. It took Erwin a moment to place, but he was good with voices and it eventually clicked. Waiting a few long moments to be sure, he only became more confident it was them.

“I know who it is,” he told the dragon, lifting his voice just loud enough that the others could make out his words. “Naam, Lyda!”

The flashlight swung abruptly in their direction. “Who is that?” Their voices were similar, but Erwin thought that was Lyda’s. She didn’t sound terribly perturbed to find someone else in the tunnel with her, but really that only confirmed her identity.

“It’s Erwin and Levi.”

“I should have guessed that, probably, with a start like yours. That was beautiful flying, Levi.”

“Thank you.”

“You wouldn’t happen to know who killed the dragons up top, would you?”

“We were just wondering that ourselves,” Erwin called. “We thought we were about to find out.”

“Oh. Sorry about that. What a piece of shit, right? The elevator, I mean. We promise not to kill you guys if you won’t kill us. I figure we’d benefit from numbers, here.”

“We’re up ahead of you,” Erwin answered, switching on the light so they could be seen. “The rooms between us are clear.”

“Obliged. Be right there.”

Even without clearing rooms, their pace was slow. It was Naam holding them up, dragging unsteadily like she’d been injured. She looked miserable and washed out as she approached, her skin visibly clammy under the flashlight glow. Lyda didn’t seem terribly concerned about it, so it may not have been as serious as it looked, but Lyda’s face wasn’t the easiest to read, especially in the dark.

“Is Naam alright?”

Lyda glanced back over her shoulder as if she’d only just realized she wasn’t alone. “Of course she is. It’s the pheromones. Isn’t Levi feeling them?” She raised an interested eyebrow at the look of him, standing there beside Erwin like nothing was the matter. “How is he doing that?”

Erwin glanced at Levi, who shrugged. “I have the genes for it.”

Well, it was the truth. Lyda whistled quietly, allowing them to see that she’d been impressed. “Not so here, I’m afraid. I had to carry mine across after she passed out. It’s some kind of mess up there.”

“You caught up to us, though,” Erwin said, trying to be charitable towards the ailing dragon.

Lyda only shrugged. “It wasn’t speed. Naam is fast, but she’s an average fast. Nothing like what you’ve got there. I saw that and knew we needed to make up for the time, so we’ve been flying through most of the night hoping to catch you.”

Perhaps pheromones weren’t the only reason Naam looked like she was about to fall over. She had one hand on the wall, breathing hard as though she’d been worked into the ground, but Lyda took it all in stride like that was par for the course. She seemed more interested in the fingers that Levi and Erwin still had laced together, her eyes lingering there for a little too long. “It looks like the pair of you have been bonding well,” she said. “The Idrarod has been good for you, I take it?”

“It’s not so good for anyone, now,” Levi answered coldly. His answer seemed to surprise Lyda, who looked at him like he was something incredibly odd.

“You're very lax with him, but I can tell he respects you.” It was a both statement and a request to know Erwin’s secret. The detective’s eyes slid to the burnt out dragon hovering listlessly behind her, but it was Levi who answered.

“He respected me first.”

“Fascinating. You two are a well-matched pair. Shall we move on?”

“I would like a moment to rest. Levi and I were up all night.”

Levi reacted so well that he didn't even glance at Erwin in confusion. Including himself in the statement was a necessary stretch, as he doubted Lyda would stop for Levi's sake alone. She certainly hadn't stopped for Naam’s. Erwin's inclusion seemed to do it, though. She stepped readily into the small refuge chamber and let her bag and saddle drop. Naam followed more slowly, barely looking at anyone as she ditched her bag and sank to the floor, to tired to look relieved.

“I'll take the first watch,” Erwin volunteered, taking up his pick axe and moving to sit in the doorway, using the frame as a prop. “Come here, Levi.”

“I won't be able to sleep.”

“You will. There's four of us now and you're safe.”

The drake took the space next to Erwin, but he didn't do anything with it until the man reached out and pulled him into his side. “Is everyone settled?”

“Well enough,” Lyda answered.

“The light’s going out, then.”

He set the darkened flashlight aside and turned, taking Levi's face in his hands and tipping it back so he could press their mouths together. The drake jumped in surprise, but melted into him like Erwin had flipped a switch, his lips yielding to the touch of Erwin's tongue.

It was a challenge of concentration keeping all of it absolutely silent, but Erwin did that by keeping the kiss slow and careful. That was what Levi needed anyway. He needed to relax, not get even more wound up, so Erwin held himself in check, his thumb smoothing lightly over Levi's cheekbone in a pace that matched the way his mouth moved.

“Sleep, Levi. I’m watching.”

The drake nudged his face into Erwin's neck, breathing him in agreeably. It was a long time after that before he slept, but they got him there eventually.


	34. Orphan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They're really _really_ not alone in the mine.

**************

_ December 6 _

**************

For several hours there was little else to disrupt the mine’s uncanny silence except for the small sounds Erwin’s companions made as they slept. Lyda and Naam were both breathy sleepers, but neither made any more noise than a heavy exhale unless they shifted their weight or repositioned a limb. Their racing leathers creaked ever so slightly when they moved. Lyda straightened her leg at one point, the heel of her boot lightly scuffing the floor. Her back shifted against the wall. She and Naam leaned into opposite corners, curling into steel walls rather than each other. 

Erwin felt for Naam. The only person she was allowed to have was someone she was not mated to, someone she was not interested in and who was not interested in her. They had likely been paired for their striking resemblance to one another, but appearance was all they shared. Ostensibly, they rode as partners, but they behaved like two strangers who’d been stuck together at summer camp for a team building activity.

“Lyda, are you awake?”

“Yeah.”

“When did you and Naam meet?”

“At my tenth birthday. She was a gift from my parents.”

“Did you meet before that or did they just give her to you?” 

There was a smile in Lyda’s voice when she answered. “I had no idea she was coming. They were so convincing when they said I had to wait until I was a teenager, but all my friends were getting dragons, so I should have guessed. Ten is about the right time.”

“Why is that?” 

Lyda shrugged. Erwin could hear the way it moved her racing colors. “You’re old enough to understand the responsibility you’ve been given, but young enough to enjoy the experience of being raised with a dragon at your side. It’s a good age. What about you and Levi? How long have you been together?” 

Erwin hesitated, but he saw little harm in the truth. “About a month. I’m a police detective and I met him on a case.”

“A month? How? I mean … did something happen to your first?” 

“No, nothing like that. I never had a dragon before Levi and I said I never would.”

“But you took him?” Lyda asked. “At his age? What made you do that?” 

“Circumstances,” Erwin answered honestly. “I had him in protective custody as a witness for my case. Things developed from there.”

Lyda made a low, thoughtful sound. “I wouldn’t have guessed it. He’s so attached to you. I know that happens sometimes, where a dragon will just sort of take to a person. I saw once at obedience school.”

Just ‘take to?’ What sort of an education had this young woman been given? Probably some watered-down, child safe version of the truth. Ten years old, for the love of humanity. “Yes, he sought me out,” Erwin answered experimentally. “He was experiencing the allure.”

“He wanted to bone you?” Lyda asked abruptly, an edge of laughter in her tone. Erwin didn’t like the way it sounded, like there was something wrong with Levi wanting such a thing. “That is so unreal. His first owner wasn’t a pervert, were they? I don’t know many reasons not to neuter a drake that old.”

“They were breeding him.”

“Oh, of course. That makes sense. Well, something seems to have stuck after you got him fixed. The way he looks at you is absolutely devoted, you know? Have you seen that?”

It would have been an easy thing to let her assume--to answer the second question and ignore the first, but Erwin wasn’t sure how it would sit with him if he did that. He pushed his fingers into Levi’s hair and the drake sighed in his sleep, his breath fanning across Erwin’s collarbone. 

“He hasn’t been neutered. The allure has become a courtship and he’s still deciding, but I know what I want.”

Lyda was silent for a long time. “Oh,” she said finally, though she didn’t sound any more phased than she ever had. “So. You want him fully in tact for that? Like you’re going to do the whole shebang?”

“I want the same things that most people in a relationship want. You wouldn’t neuter your partner. Generally, that also means doing  _ the whole shebang.” _

“It doesn’t sound pervy when you put it that way.” 

“It isn’t perverted. I don’t have a dragon kink and I’m not in it because of a control fetish. The person I’m absolutely devoted to happens to be a dragon, that’s all.”

“Well, he won’t reject you,” Lyda told him confidently. “My hand to god, he looks at you like he’s imagining what it feels like to lay between your legs. Had you noticed?”

Erwin hadn’t, actually--probably because he was too busy imagining the same thing, himself. He’d like to see how Levi’s thighs felt as well, cradled around his ribs as he swallowed the drake whole. “I’m sorry,” he said, realizing suddenly that he’d been silent a beat too long. “I hadn’t noticed.” 

“I didn’t freak you out, did I? I know a lot of people don’t like to advertize your sort of persuasion, but I guess it’s better for you to know than not. He’s … pretty obvious about it.”

“That’s fine,” Erwin assured her. “I’m proud of him, honestly. I think I may like the idea of people seeing him want me. Maybe it’s even good that they do. Couples like us keep their relationships so quiet that it isn’t considered normal. No one sees anything different, so they carry on believing whatever they imagine.”

“Huh.” Lyda was humoring him. Erwin could hear it in her tone. “Whatever floats your boat. It’s your life, he’s your dragon. If you want to be his human, too, that’s your business. You won’t catch any judgment off me.”

The answer surprised Erwin, but he didn’t say so. He thought he might even believe her. Strange as she seemed to find it, she gave no indication that it mattered to her either way. “Good. That will certainly make us all better company for each other.” 

“Speaking of. It’s been three hours. Are you two ready to move?”

“Is Naam? She looked a little ragged when I saw her last.” 

“We’ve both been working ourselves hard to win this race. It’s my family we’re here to support, not just ourselves. That’s what matters most to us.” 

Erwin wondered if Lyda had consulted Naam about her priorities before lumping them in with her own, but it wasn’t the time to ask questions like that. They were all relying on each other to get out of the mine in one piece and that was a boat he wouldn’t risk rocking. “Still,” he said instead, “if we run into trouble she won’t be at her best. She could barely stand.”

“I think most of that was the situation topside. It’s a lucky thing she only lost consciousness. Those pheromones will kill a lot of dragons who fight them. I think they might have if she’d been awake, the way her heart was racing.”

“I’m fine,” Naam replied drowsily from the opposite corner. “The worst of the smell hasn’t made it all the way down here.” 

“If you both are sure.” Erwin gave Naam a moment to change her mind before he nudged Levi gently, unintentionally catching the back of his head when he jumped awake. “We’re okay. It’s just time to move.” 

“Jesus,” he murmured. “Did I sleep?”

“For three hours, according to Lyda’s sports watch.” 

“Impossible.” Levi straightened a little stiffly, stretching before he stood. 

Erwin reached for his flashlight, but Lyda beat him to it. “We’ll save batteries if we take this in shifts, too,” she said, and that was another point to consider, wasn’t it? Divided between the two groups, they could double their respective battery lives. Lyda reached out and placed the light in the floor, pointed up, so they could get themselves together, shouldering bags and saddles and forming up in the center of the tiny chamber. When they’d gathered, she kneeled for the light, flipping it off for the time being. “Alright, detective, I’m sure you organize people all the time. How are we doing this?”

“What kind of fighting experience do you have?”

There was a moment’s pause. “Fighting experience?” Lyda asked.

“You were wondering what killed all those dragons by the entrance,” Erwin reminded her. “If they came from down here, we won’t make it out by asking nicely.”

“Well … I took taequando when I was five. I was a green belt.”

“I see. We’ll put you in the rear since you’re in better shape than Naam. You’ll be less vulnerable there since we’ve already cleared the mine behind us, but it’s still a minor risk so keep your guard up. Levi and I will take the front, since we have the most combat experience. He and I will go two abreast. Naam will follow directly behind us with the light and make sure that Levi and I can see what’s coming. When we clear rooms, Naam, we need you ready to move fast, but always stay behind us.”

“Understood,” the dragon intoned. 

“One of you will also need to take our saddle. I want both of our hands free for combat and we can’t be at our best with a saddle between us.” 

“You’re volunteering to be our meat shield,” Lyda told them dryly. “I’ll carry anything you want.”

“Forgive me,” Naam spoke up, though there was no real apology in her tone, only polite inquiry. “Your fighting experience is logical, detective, but what experience does Levi have?”

It was another situation where it would easy to lie. A police detective might be expected to teach his partner how to defend himself, but that lie wouldn’t help them in the long run. When they returned from the race they would need to know what their story was and unfortunately that story had to be the truth. Crossing the finish line would put them well ahead of the DCA on its own, but they could not give the agency any power over public opinion. They had to be in control of the way Levi’s origins came to light or the DCA would try to control it for them and their version would not be flattering. It wouldn’t be a hard picture to paint--a creature barely in control, incredibly talented and incredibly dangerous. Being caught in a lie would only make things look worse for him.  

“That case I mentioned meeting Levi on was a fighting ring bust. He was one of the dragons there.” 

The light clicked back on. “Are you fucking around?” Lyda demanded to know, her eyes sharp with suspicion. “An actual fighting ring? Illegal?”

“It’s true,” Levi assured them, weathering the anxious cast to their expressions with easy grace.  _ Anxious  _ was actually a bit of an understatement where Naam was concerned. She looked half-ready to split right on out of there, turning uncertainly to Lyda like she thought she might be killed without the human’s intervention. “I was raised in a stable and trained to fight in both of my forms.”

Their eyes followed Levi closely when his weight shifted.

“He’s fine,” Erwin promised. “You’d have never known if we hadn’t told you.” 

“Why  _ did  _ you tell us?” Lyda asked. 

Levi snorted. “You asked.” He motioned with his head for them to go, swinging the pickaxe onto his shoulder and--probably intentionally--making the other two flinch. It was a fascinating novelty seeing the other pair react to something. 

“Honestly, I wouldn’t have told anybody the truth about that,” Lyda mentioned as she followed them out. “Do you plan to make this general knowledge?”

“It will be general knowledge whether we want it to be or not,” Erwin answered. “We might as well tell people the way we want the story told.” 

“And that story sounds like a doozie. You guys are going to be front page news even if you come in dead last.” 

They fell into a routine with only a couple doorways of practice, Levi and Erwin clearing while Naam lit the way forward. She did a good job, ensuring that the light was pointed directly between them and that nobody’s back got in the way. She was attentive, adjusting quickly in response to changes in position. It was a long tunnel made longer by the frequent pauses, but it did have an end, despite all appearances to the contrary. 

“Is that a door straight ahead?” Lyda asked from the back. 

“It’s a door,” Erwin confirmed. “How likely do you think it is that this is the exit?”

“In terms of odds, you’re looking at negative numbers,” Lyda answered. “They didn’t put a whole stack of bodies outside of a four inch mine shaft.”

“More pessimists,” Erwin sighed. “What is that?” He squinted into the dark, trying to decipher the shapes he saw beyond the doorway. Naam’s light winked off of something stretched horizontally around hip level--a handrail, maybe, but the shine was dull, not as bright as metal. Whatever it was, it was inorganic, which matched Erwin’s preferences on the matter. 

“We’re checking corners first,” he told the others, using as quiet an undertone as he was capable of pulling off and pointing silently to the left. Naam nodded her understanding, so Erwin gestured them forwards, barely flinching when the floor abruptly changed textures beneath their feet. His heel came down on something less giving than rock, the soles of his boots thudding dully like he’d just stepped onto a sidewalk grate. There was nothing beneath them but air for a good ways. The metal had that sound to it, like it had been suspended across a void. 

Erwin didn’t address it until their immediate surroundings had been cleared, but as soon as they’d found themselves safely alone he stopped to click on his light and point it at the floor. “We’re on some sort of catwalk.” Stepping forward, he was able to identify the far edge--the rail they’d seen from a distance gaining shape as Erwin came closer. He reached out. 

“Be careful,” Lyda warned, lingering cautiously with Naam in the doorway where the rock beneath them was solid. “Look for rusted out parts.” 

The rail was filthy, laden with dust that didn’t appear to have been touched for a century. That explained the dullness then, but it could have been misleading. Mines were gritty places. Perhaps the dust had only been there for a week or just a handful of days. “No one move for a second.” 

“You won’t see me rushing over there,” Lyda assured him. “What are you doing?”

“Investigating,” was all Erwin told her. He’s taken hold of the handrail and lowered himself carefully onto the dust grate to touch the floor. He didn’t find quite as much grime there as he’d seen on the rails, but he bent over carefully so his ear hovered just over the catwalk and pointed the light along one of their two potential paths. It was difficult to see much because the grate made it difficult to tell if anything had been disturbed, but he did see a slight pattern. “I think this path is being used,” he said. “It isn’t definite, but the floor is grimier along the edges than down the middle. If dust settles as quickly here as I’m guessing, it was used recently. Within a week and multiple times.”

Erwin stood, using the rail to help balance the extra weight he was carrying before he thought about whether or not it was sturdy enough to accommodate him. It was, but he felt Levi release one of the straps on his bag as he straightened, the drake’s hand falling casually away. “Thank you.”

Levi shrugged. “I guess the rail won't break.”

“Not right there anyway.” 

Erwin motioned for Levi to remain still and moved away carefully, placing his feet over the metal until he was sure it looked and felt solid. There was no rust that he could see, or corrosion, only enough dust to bury the dead. Naam stepped tentatively behind him and explored the area with the light as opposed to her feet, finding that the rail blocked their way completely except for the one section directly in front of them where the track they'd been following stretched ahead into darkness. The railing seemed to be screwed directly into the walls on either side, giving them nowhere else to go but forward or down. 

“What is this?” Levi asked, looking over the rail into the pitch black chasm below. 

Erwin turned and drew his light up the wall behind them, finding that the darkness climbed upwards for some unknowable distance, though it didn't reach all the way to the surface because there wasn't a shred of light to be seen when Erwin clicked his light off to check. Digging straight up like that didn't seem terribly sensible and the jagged suggestion of unconquered rock suggested that no one had tried. “They probably dug into a natural fissure,” he guessed. “I don't see why they would intentionally cut a thing like this.”

“Maybe it caved in,” Lyda suggested. “Then they built the bridge to reconnect the two sides.”

“Could be,” Erwin agreed, but it was all just speculation without a bottom to look at. When he pointed his flashlight down there was nothing to see but more darkness. “That could happen if they found groundwater, I think. Like a sinkhole.”

“Hey, hold on.” Lyda eased her saddle to the ground and let her bag fall so she could dig through it. She came out with a good sized glow stick--a brilliant idea, really, for an endurance race. The young woman snapped the plastic with a sharp crack and gave it a hard shake, letting the chemicals blend as she stepped lightly over to join the others on the catwalk. She whistled as she glanced over the rail. “I didn't think we could go any deeper than we were without hitting the fiery liquid stuff. Well. Bombs away, I guess.”

She let the stick go. 

They all leaned over the rail to watch it plummet, each of them holding their breaths as they listened silently for it to land. After a long silence, a distant splash, then the light softened and diffused as it sank. 

“Hell is wet,” Levi confirmed, like he'd known it all along. 

“What do you think that means?” Lyda asked Erwin softly, ignoring Levi for the moment. “Will we have to swim our way out?”

“It doesn't look deep, if so. We might have to wade, but that may not even be the bottom of the mine. If this is a natural geological feature, the lowest level could sit much higher than that.”

“Bring the light back up,” Levi instructed. “I thought I saw something along the wall.”

“Where?” But Erwin had already seen the same thing. “That's a rail.”

“You think all the levels cut through here?” Lyda asked them eagerly, looking down into the hole herself. “Is it wide enough for Levi to fit?”

The drake shook his head. “I would fit, but there wouldn't be any way to fly straight down without hitting the wall. Our wings don't beat fast enough.”

“He's right,” Erwin agreed. “We also can't be sure it's the same width all the way down. If the chasm narrows he could be seriously injured.”

Lyda sighed in disappointment, but their logic was sound. “How many floors can you see?”

“Assuming they're all evenly spaced,” Erwin paused to see how far down the light would reach, “I'd guess seven or eight.”

Lyda cursed. “This will take us all day.”

“More, at the rate we’ve been clearing rooms.”

Levi huffed a short breath of air, pushing off the rail to get started. “We won't get it done by standing around gawping.”

They gathered their small formation into its proper order and took the catwalk as quickly as they dared, hands on rails like that would help them if the whole thing went crashing into the sinkhole. The group was most of the way across--probably--when Naam doused the light without warning.

Erwin reached out automatically, taking Levi by the elbow as he turned. “Naam--”

“I hear something down there,” she whispered back. 

No one else spoke, straining into the silence with every ounce of sensitivity their ears possessed. There was nothing for a time, or maybe that was something dripping deep in the mine, but nothing indicated anything out of place.

And then Levi twisted in Erwin's grip, squeezing his forearm as he pulled the detective closer. “Someone  _ is _ down there,” he murmured quietly. That was right about the time Erwin heard it too--a heavy and rhythmic sound like someone had a heavy sack dragging the floor behind them. A couple levels below, a second light winked into view, working its way slowly onto the catwalk with a  _ slide, pause, slide, pause, slide, pause  _ pattern that struck Erwin as both leisurely and disturbing. He could see the latticework of several catwalks between them, but the figure and its burden were an indecipherable collection of shadows. They all watched unmoving as the figure paused, lingering several steps along the catwalk before it moved to the rail and leaned over, a tousled head coming into view as someone looked down. 

“Fuck and shit,” Levi murmured. “The glow thing.”

It did seem to be the glow stick that caught the boy’s attention. Granted, it was the brightest, most obvious thing in the chasm apart from the boy’s own light. And he was a boy. He was small, no older than fourteen, and when he looked up blindly into the dark his face was blotted with filth, his hair a matted wreck and--his eyes. 

“He's a youngling!” Naam blurted out. “Hey!”

The boy’s elliptical eyes widened, the light jumping in his hand as he raised it. There was no sense in ducking away or trying to pretend they weren't there. Naam was already leaning over the rail to address him, her hand raised in a wave. “Who is that?” She called to him. “This is Naam and Levi with our riders.”

“Naam,” Levi hissed sharply. “Shut the fuck up.”

The boy hadn't answered, but his face blossomed into a smile, revealing two rows of badly neglected teeth. He raised his hand slightly to wave back. 

“We're going,” Erwin stated grimly. “Now.”

Lyda hesitated, looking over her shoulder at the youngling, who hadn't moved an inch from where he stood, gazing placidly up at them. “What if he knows the way out?”

Levi snorted. “He probably does, but he doesn't seem inclined to tell us.” He was happy to let Erwin pull him away from the rail, his eyes meeting Lyda’s over his shoulder. “I think you know he didn't come from the starting line. He's too young to race and we'd have all noticed a personal hygiene problem that serious. After what you saw on the surface are you going to trust anyone you don't recognize?”

“He's just a kid,” Lyda protested, but she did reluctantly follow. Naam was even less eager. Her eyes kept drifting back to look for the youngling, even though their brisk pace got them all out of sight of each other. 

“Please allow me to go back. He's a youngling,” Naam repeated. “He shouldn't be away from his mother.”

“You've done enough,” Levi replied harshly, earning himself a slight frown. 

“I haven't done anything wrong.”

The drake turned on her, his eyes flashing in the beam of her flashlight. “You told him how many of us there are,” he hissed. “You're so busy worried about abandoned orphans that you haven't realized that he probably  _ isn't _ one. What if this territory belongs to his parents? Now they know to plan for four rather than two. You've lost us any edge we had left.”

Naam didn't have a response to that. 

“Get back into formation,” Erwin told them all, stepping in quickly when he had the chance. They were coming up on the first of the refuge chambers on that side of the chasm. “We're on a straight track for anyone who wants to come after us. The only thing we have in our favor is the number of rooms they’ll have to check. For now, the best way to lose them is to duck into one of these shelters and wait them out. If they come this way we stand a good chance at ambushing them, but we should put several rooms between us and the catwalk. That way, we have a cushion of space from both directions.”

Lyda nodded, but Naam looked uncharacteristically sour about the whole thing, her expression failing to clear even as they moved into their previous arrangement and discussed moving forwards. Her hand shook when she raised the light for Erwin and Levi, but none of them said anything about it. 


	35. Old School Tech

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erwin shuts Lyda down and then the mine shuts everybody else down.

**************

_ December 6 _

**************

They waited for nothing. 

The minutes stretched, chipping their time away and letting the shavings drop like sawdust around their riding boots. Erwin couldn't seem to stop touching Levi. It was something about the dark, he thought, because he felt the drake reach out for him several times as well. The gesture was easy to miss, just the faintest brush of fingers across a shoulder or a wrist, but Erwin suspected they were both trying to do the same thing. Without the lights, without noise or movement, reality narrowed to Erwin himself and the hard press of stone where he sat. One could almost believe that there was nothing else. 

One could lose their mind down such rabbit holes. 

“No one is coming,” Erwin decided after a time. 

“Perhaps the youngling was on his own after all,” Naam suggested. “His parents may have been killed by the same thing that killed the others.”

“Why isn't he up here looking for us, then?” Levi countered. 

Lyda made a small skeptical sound from the back of her throat. “He may not have had parents here at all. He might have belonged to someone who was killed or lost on a camping trip. Perhaps he ran off and found the mine. Who knows?” 

_ “Yeah.” _ The little drake’s enthusiasm for the idea was entirely false. “Or  _ maybe  _ they baited a dragon trap with something a dragon would go for. Like, for example, a sweet orphaned youngling just begging to be scooped up and given a bath. That’s what I would do. And then do you know what I would do after that?” 

Erwin nudged him before he could tell anyone what it was he would do after that, but they still seemed to be waiting for a response. That, or they’d been stunned into silence by the theory. It didn’t sound like there was any place in the life they lived for things like baited traps and senseless murder. They didn’t think along those lines and so their easy poker faces were starting to make sense. How difficult could it be to remain unflappable when there was never any cause for concern? They had been raised in a world where danger happened to other people and risk was something that only applied to stock options.

This trap had been built especially for people like Lyda and Naam.

Erwin leaned forward and switched his flashlight on, setting it on the floor so they could all see to pack up. “This is the sort of situation where we want to assume the worst,” he told them with a brief stretch. “Feel free to hope what you like, but the safest assumption we can make is that the youngling is not trustworthy.”

They parted for a quick bathroom break, leaving the females where they were and advancing carefully along the wall to the next refuge chamber. “They’re going to die,” Levi said quietly. “You know that, don’t you?”

“They aren’t prepared for this sort of competition,” Erwin agreed. “They’ve all been training for the wrong things. I think we can prevent their deaths, though.” He motioned for silence as they came up on the next chamber, tucking the light against his chest so it wouldn’t announce them to anyone inside. Levi stepped forward, overtaking Erwin to go ahead of him with the axe, and Erwin fell naturally to one side, moving out of the tool’s natural path in case Levi had to swing it. As one, they moved, the pickaxe rising with the light that Levi knew would be there pointing him forward.

“This is something I understand.” Levi continued as if there hadn’t been an interruption. “We could prevent their deaths but they could also cause yours. I won’t accept that.”

Erwin took one look at the stubborn set of the drake’s jaw and sighed. “It wouldn’t be decent of us to leave them behind. I couldn’t do it.”

“We could do it now. Only the saddle is with them and that thing is a pain in the ass anyway.” 

Erwin shook his head, reaching up and catching Levi lightly by the chin. He didn’t think he would ever get tired of the way it made the drake freeze, his lips parting immediately for Erwin’s like he was primed for the man’s mouth. It almost distracted him from the matter at hand. “The race will end,” he answered, smoothing his fingers lightly along Levi’s jaw. “When it does, we’ll have to become people again. We’ll be left to live with the decisions we made out here, and I wouldn’t be able to live with this one.” 

“I could,” Levi said roughly, his jaw tensing under Erwin’s touch. “I’ve done worse things to survive. How are you okay with all that?”

“Survival has always been one of your strongest instincts. I don’t think you’d be standing here if it wasn’t. But it was more straightforward for you at the stable. You chose yourself or you chose to die. Now you have other options, but you’re still only seeing the two. Here’s the thing, though.” Erwin pressed the flashlight into Levi’s free hand, watching the shadows shift across the drake’s upturned face as his eyes remained fixed on Erwin. “You’re also a good person. If you leave them here you’re going to feel it too and it’s going to add more weight to that knot of guilt you’ve been carrying around with you over all those dragons you killed. I won’t let you take any more.”

Levi’s throat contracted around a heavy swallow. “Erwin.” The pickaxe clattered to the floor and the drake’s fingers thrust down beneath the leather straps at Erwin’s hip, yanking the man into his body hard enough that he lurched back a step when they collided. “How do you know all that shit? How have you  _ always  _ known?” 

“You don’t look as bad as you feel,” the man assured him, responding to Levi’s roughness with a sharp tug to his hair. It was the intensity that the drake seemed to need just then, judging by the immediacy with which he arched into Erwin--as quickly as if he’d been waiting for the gesture.

_ “Shit.” _

“I know what ugly looks like,” Erwin continued, drawing his fingernails along Levi’s scalp as the dragon squirmed. “I put it in prison for a living. That is not what you--” He gave up when Levi’s lips found his jugular and latched to him like a remora, figuring he wasn’t paying attention anymore. “Levi, don’t drop our flashlight.” 

“Nng.” 

Levi seemed determined to touch every single part of Erwin’s face with his lips, rising onto his tiptoes and leaning into the man for balance as he reached up and--

“Levi--” 

The hall outside brightened with light, but Lyda’s voice rose before any alarm. She was there without any warning, just appearing in the doorway with Naam’s silhouette moving at her heels. “Goddamn,” the young woman declared. “I wish I had my camera phone. This is just like the start of a dungeon porn. Probably.”

Erwin, who had actually seen dungeon porn, had to agree that there was probably enough leather to qualify them. “We haven’t used the toilet,” he told her, hoping she would take it as a hint to leave them alone. Levi still leaned against him, unconcerned about the position they’d been found in, though he was scowling bad-temperedly into the flashlight beam. 

Instead of going anywhere, Lyda just cocked her head thoughtfully, her eyes falling to the approximate location of their groins. “Are you going to be  _ able  _ to use the toilet?” she asked smugly, though she lowered the light and left them to it. 

“I’d like to leave them now,” Levi stated, letting Erwin pull away to see if he could, in fact, do any of his business. It was a little uncertain for a couple moments, but he managed, wrong as it still felt to be doing such things indoors. 

The others were waiting patiently for them just down the hall, their flashlight coming on as Erwin and Levi appeared. 

“If you wanted a minute all you had to do was say so,” Lyda teased. “We’d have stood guard and only peeked a little bit.”

“That is filthy,” Levi bit out. Without a better look at the drake’s face it was difficult to tell how strongly he meant that. 

“It is,” Lyda agreed. “What a gross place to consummate a courtship.” 

Levi’s eyes slid curiously to Erwin, but he didn’t say anything. 

*

The other end of the mine terminated in a second elevator shaft, empty except for a small cluster of pully cables that swayed faintly on a chilly draft billowing up from below. 

“It looks like there’s a second exit down there,” Erwin observed, pulling the ancient gates apart as quietly as he could make them move. When he looked down, though, there was nothing. Even when he pointed his light towards the bottom, he did not see the roof of an elevator. “We have a ways yet.”

“There  _ is _ an exit, though,” Levi assured him. “The air smells fresh.” 

Naam nodded, though no one had particularly addressed her. Erwin happened to see it from the corner of his eye. “You believe the same?” 

She nodded again. 

Lyda took a deep breath, her relief clear. “So this is it, then. We’re done. Let’s get that piece of crap up here.” 

The detective stepped back quickly, giving the elevator shaft space to be as unpredictable as it looked. Lyda was kind enough to wait until he and Levi were clear before she threw the switch on the control panel, producing a heavy-sounding click and then--

\--nothing. 

“Does it take a minute, you think?” 

“It could,” Erwin answered doubtfully, but as they all stood there staring at the cables while the moments stretched and all that happened was that same loose swaying, they began to doubt. “The other one was louder.” 

“Maybe this one was an upgrade,” Lyda guessed grimly. She already knew the answer, though. There was no elevator coming. 

“The cables have probably been severed.” Erwin pointed to the languid drape of cording that probably was not something you’d want to see on any elevator. “I’m not an engineer, but I imagine those should be more taut.”

“What do we do, then?” Lyda asked. “God knows how far a jump that would be.” 

“We climb,” came Levi’s reply. “Obviously.”

“All the way to the bottom?” 

Levi shrugged. “Well, I see no reason to tour the rest of this hellhole, but if you want to get the full floor-by-floor experience, you go on ahead.” He handed his pickaxe to Erwin and turned around pointedly. “I’m going ahead of you, Erwin. If there are dragons down there waiting for us, I stand the best chance of not immediately dying.” There was a edge of steely challenge in his face--a sort of  _ don’t you dare fucking argue with me  _ look that Erwin hadn’t seen since they’d first met and the drake was still prepared to bite people’s limbs off to prove a point. 

“I’ll be right behind you, then.” Erwin unzipped the pocket closest to Levi’s head and worked the handle of the pickaxe down between their other items, pulling the zippers back up to hold the wood on either side. “See if you can grab that.” 

Levi could. He nodded as his fingers curled around the head of the axe. “I can get to it quickly.” 

“Good.” Erwin pulled him gently around, tipping the edge of the hard hat down so it sat more securely on the drake’s head. “We should have taken more time to see if any of these headlamps worked.” He bent to drop a brief kiss over Levi’s lips, producing his flashlight and flipping it on. “Open up, my lovely flower.” 

It startled a much-needed laugh from Levi, who raised an eyebrow, but opened his mouth obligingly to take the slim handle of the flashlight. Evidently unwilling to waste a perfect opportunity for some additional raunchy flirting, Levi closed his lips on the end of the light and locked eyes with Erwin as he slid them up, his message as unmistakable as a house fire. 

Lyda shook her head. “I’m sorry, did I suggest you might not realize that Levi is into you?”

“Ugh, gross.” 

“I think you mean  _ hot _ , Naam,” Lyda corrected. “Completely perverted. But hot.”

The drake tipped his chin up, smirking at them around his mouthful, then he turned on his heel and bolted for the elevator shaft, clearing the gap effortly and snagging the cable at the center and pushing off the far wall with the sole of his boot. He swung there naturally, looking as unconcerned about it as a tree frog.

“Only move down enough for me to clear your head,” Erwin told him, motioning for Lyda’s light. 

“Don’t you raunch at me,” the woman warned, shoving her own flashlight into Erwin’s mouth with a decidedly less suggestive demeanor. “You be a gentleman with that.”

The detective saluted her loosely, then turned to follow Levi, though he was much less sure about it than the dragon had been. He made the jump without falling to his death, but he did slam his shoulder into the far wall when he failed to turn in time. “Mmph,” he grunted, but did not lose Lyda’s flashlight. Levi reached up to pat his boot thoughtfully. 

“Mmnh mmnh,” Erwin told him gratefully. 

“Ynn muum nn,” Levi replied, offering another comforting pat before he began working his way down. Or maybe that was the signal to move, who could tell? Erwin’s boots didn’t offer a good grip, even on the ridged metal, so he let Levi get a little farther down before wrapping his leg around the cable for a little extra hold. Still, his upper body was doing most of the work and he felt the effects fairly quickly. It wasn’t long at all before his muscles began to quiver, a light burn twitching to life in his shoulders and inching slowly through his arms and back. More than once he pointed the light down past his thigh and saw nothing but Levi’s face turning to look up at him. The drake’s expression was analytical, his eyes moving over Erwin like he was watching to see how well he was doing. 

When the bottom did come, it came as a surprise. They’d been inching their way down for so long that Erwin had taken to closing his eyes and focusing solely on the steps involved with the process of moving-- _bend knees,_ _extend elbows, body, right hand, left hand, again, again, again, again._ It helped him not to focus on the way his pain spread and magnified, becoming dangerous in its intensity. So when Levi’s voice rose, it made Erwin start. 

“We’re here.”

The drake’s hands slid up Erwin’s back as he lowered his body to the bottom of the shaft, steadying him as his boots hit the dirt. Except … it wasn’t dirt. Scowling, Erwin was pointing his flashlight down before he’d even let go of the cables. Well, shit.

“This isn’t the bottom.”

“No,” Levi agreed, peering at Erwin intently. “Did you have your eyes closed?”

“A watched pot never boils,” the detective replied absently, starting to step away from the cables and realizing how shaky he was. He reached out again and took hold of the cables, flexing his fingers on the metal and finding the joints sore. “Is that water, Levi?”

He couldn’t see past the grate under his boots, but he thought that was what it was. Nothing else moved quite that way. Levi shrugged out of his saddle bag and let it drop to the metal beneath them, kneeling to peer straight down through the slits. “It’s  _ filthy _ water.”

“How high does it look?” Erwin asked. “Over head level?”

“Over my head level, maybe. Your head would probably stay dry, but there’s no way down there unless you lose … well, all of your body weight actually. You’d have to be this wide.” He held up two fingers that indicated the four inches of clearance between the elevator and the wall. 

He was right. When Erwin moved to look around, there was no hatch through the top of the elevator. “You have to love pre-regulation technology,” he muttered. “We’ll need to go across the mine on this level and see if if the shaft on the other side is open.”

“If it isn’t?”

“Well, we have our pickaxes,” Erwin joked. Raising his voice, he added for the others, “We’re at the bottom. Lower everything else down to us before you follow. It’s a long trip.”

There was a pause, then from somewhere above them, Lyda called back. “You aren’t kidding, you’re the size of a flea from up here.” She must have turned to speak to Naam after that because her voice fell to a soft muffle. Erwin caught something about rope and no the other bag and then Lyda was back to say, “Give us a minute to tie everything off. It may be a couple of trips.” 

“We need the time,” Erwin assured her, moving to the side and dropping heavily to the floor--not unlike the way Levi’s discarded bag had done. 

“Are you okay?” the drake asked, kneeling beside him and taking one of Erwin’s hands in both of his. He was winded himself, letting gravity carry him all the way back onto his ass as he idly pulled the detective’s fingers straight, rubbing at the sore joints. “You keep flexing your hands.” 

“I’m fine, but I won’t say no to what you’re doing right there.” 

Levi snorted. “You can do mine next if it feels that nice,” he said, but he didn’t rush through it. Instead, he took each of Erwin’s fingers and worked some of the tightness from the joints--something that didn’t help much in the long term but felt nice while he was doing it. “You didn’t break anything, did you grandpappy?”

“Careful, you look pretty winded yourself.”

Levi didn’t deny it. It had been a long climb.

Getting the other two down took even more time. First came the saddlebags, lowered on a rope for Erwin to untie, then after that the saddles arrived, but the worst part wasn’t until after that, when Lyda and Naam were ready to descend. There was a lot of panic partway down when Naam realized that she was suspended over a deep shaft and her arms were getting tired. Her panic was subdued. Even in her most emotional moments she was very well contained, but there had been a certain note of desperation in her voice when she announced that she was in pain. 

“I can’t go much farther,” she’d told them a little ways after that. 

“Naam,” Lyda gritted out. “Keep going. It’s going to get worse the longer we hang here.”

For a short time, there was silence, so the dragon must have started moving again, but it didn’t last. 

_ “Naam.  _ Keep going.”

“I need a minute to--”

“It’s only going to get harder the longer you stop. You aren’t resting right now, you’re just stopping and letting your muscles get tired.” 

“Just a second,” she murmured. “I just need a second.”

“You aren’t  _ listening, _ Naam,” the woman snapped. “You’re only making things worse for both of us. Go down the fucking cable and rest at the bottom where there’s no risk of you dangling there like a complete idiot until we both get exhausted and fall to our deaths.” 

At the word ‘fall,’ Levi glanced at Erwin and reached over to pull him back against the wall, his expression stony. 

“I can’t move until you move,” the woman reminded her. “Do you want to kill us both because you  _ thought _ you were resting?”

“Lyda, please,” the dragon begged. It was almost a whimper. 

“Look, we have a long fucking way to go and I am not going to sit here and wait to die with you. Either climb down or I’m climbing down past you.” 

“I wouldn’t advise that,” Erwin interjected. The conversation was starting to unravel as both of the other racers got more and more stressed out by the situation they’d found themselves in. “Both of you take five silent seconds to relax and then start to come down. You need to move, but it isn’t urgent.”

“Tell that to my biceps,” Lyda grumbled.

“Five seconds.”

The woman sighed, but she did comply. When the moment ended, Naam must have started moving again because nothing more was forthcoming from either of them for a long time. It was just the silence and the faint sounds of clothing and flesh brushing lightly over metal. 

“I’m going to fall,” Naam said suddenly, her voice shuddering with fear.

_ “For Christ’s sake we are both going to fall if you don’t move your slow, scaly ass.”  _ If Erwin wasn’t mistaken, that was fear in Lyda’s tone, as well, and it wasn’t doing either of them any favors. In fact, something seemed to rattle loose in Lyda just then because the words didn’t stop once they started, overblown with emotion into something scathing and ugly as Lyda continued. “Sitting there like a lump is  _ not going to help you.  _ How _ fucking stupid  _ is it possible for a dragon to actually be, because Erwin’s seems fine and his is deformed and it came from a shithole. If you make it back in one piece I am having a serious discussion about breeding standards with the low-achieving douchebag who monitors your breeder’s IQ screenings--Naam!”

Erwin knew exactly what the sharp sliding sound was before the dragon exploded into view, dropping into range of their flashlights at a speed that made the whole elevator shudder when her boots hit metal. Naam staggered back, crumpling like a sack of bricks over the top of the elevator. Erwin caught a flash of blood before the dragon was able to draw her shredded palms up to her chest, letting out a quavering moan as she curled around them defensively. 

“Naam, are you okay?” Erwin asked. He knew better than to approach an injured dragon, but he didn’t think talking to her would hurt. She nodded, her eyes pinched shut as she rode out the initial pain. 

“Bad news, Lyda,” Levi drawled. “You didn’t manage to kill your meat taxi, but you’re on the right track. Maybe you should kick her down next time. It would be quicker and less brutal.”

“I’m just about done listening to your snark,” Lyda warned him, but most of the heat was gone from her tone now that Naam wasn’t impeding her descent. Free to move, her mood had lightened and she wasn’t long in joining them. Once her feet were safely planted, she let herself sink to the ground, flopping onto her back with a faint sigh. 

“Is that water?” She asked, though she made no effort to look down at it for herself. She slung her hand across her eyes and lay there breathing like she’d raced a freight train. 

“Naam was injured,” Erwin told her. “Her hands appear to be rope burnt.” 

“I’d be surprised if they weren’t. Jesus, Naam, I thought you actually fell.” 

“I’m fine.”

“She’s going to need help bandaging those. Both her hands are a mess.”

“I can do it,” Naam answered stiffly. 

“You ought to,” Lyda answered. “You did it to yourself.” 

Erwin gritted his teeth, but that reminded him of something else he intended to say. “Open your eyes and look at me, Lyda.” 

The woman obeyed him immediately, surprise apparent in her face when she turned her head to look over at Erwin. 

“I don’t have much say in how you treat Naam,” he told her. “You have legal documents stating that she belongs to you, whether that is true or not.  _ However.  _ I do have a say in how you treat Levi, and if I hear you call him deformed again we will be leaving you here with our best wishes.” Erwin paused. “In fact, don’t speak to him at all unless he asks you a question.” 

Lyda sighed slowly through her nose. “I’m sorry, deformed isn’t exactly the word I was looking for. I was only referring to his carryovers.” 

“You can stop referring to him entirely, starting now. Only answer his questions. Otherwise, he doesn’t exist for you unless you are admiring him, which you will also do silently.” 

“Unless I ask you about how wonderful I am,” Levi added drily. “Then you can admire me verbally, I think.”

“She can.”

“Excellent. In that case, if you were Erwin, then on a scale of one to ten how badly would you want to touch my ass?”

Lyda rolled her eyes, then closed them. “If I were Erwin, probably an eleven. Because then I would be Erwin, wouldn’t I?”

“God, I hope not. You’d make a shit Erwin.”

  
  


**************

_ December 7 _

**************

Lyda’s watch went off some way into the mine, when they were so deep it felt like there was more earth over their heads than under their feet. The shrill, electronic beeping had Levi turning so fast that Naam flinched back, the light in her hands swinging wildly.

“What the fuck is that?” 

Lyda answered without blinking--probably because there was another dragon between herself and the drake. “It’s the seventh.” 

“A timer,” Erwin clarified. “Evidently she has an alarm set. Is it midnight?” 

“Twelve-o-one,” Lyda corrected, waving dismissively. “You were right about how long it would take.”

Erwin nodded. “Turn it off, just in case. There are worse times it could go off.”

“You think we’ll be in here another day?” Lyda asked, making a face. 

“Do we look like professional cave experts?” Levi replied. He’d been a little sharper with the woman since the elevator shaft, but he didn’t seem terribly concerned by the comments she’d made. He just wasn’t making any effort to be civil anymore. Erwin hadn’t realized he  _ had _ been making an effort until he wasn’t anymore. 

“I want to stop just ahead,” Erwin told them. The catwalk was coming up, if he’d calculated the distance correctly. It would be a good place to pause and rest up, affording them an unobstructed view and plenty of maneuverability should they find themselves in a fight. The longer they went without a confrontation, the more certain Erwin was that there would be one. He didn’t trust the silence or the dark. He didn’t trust the peace. It felt less like being left alone and more like being stalked, although they never once heard anything to suggest as much.

“Why?” Lyda asked. “There’s only one more level. If we go now we could make it out by sunrise.” 

“If there is one more level, that is where the most threat will be,” Erwin answered. “I wouldn’t willingly walk into a fight feeling as worn out as I do.”

“You think there’s definitely going to be a fight?”

“It’s a damn shame they don’t screen human IQs like they do dragons,” Levi mentioned. “But I’m sure it’s considered unethical in that case.”

“Can I respond to that?” 

“Was it a question?” Erwin asked. 

Lyda chose silence, which was uncharacteristically wise of her. Naam seemed to be taking the same orders to heart as her human had. Where Lyda had been testing her boundaries, however, Naam hadn’t spoken at all, following behind them with the flashlight as she always had. She carried it between her wrists, having insisted that she continue her assigned role in spite of her freshly bandaged injuries. She had allowed Erwin to help her, weathering his touch more capably than she seemed to accept Lyda’s. That was something that struck him a certain way. Humans could touch a dragon they weren’t bonded with in some capacities, of course. They allowed vets to touch them, though they didn’t like it. First aid situations qualified. But she seemed … okay. She twitched under Lyda’s hands and she twitched under Erwin’s, though there was an acceptance in her demeanor that wasn’t there when Lyda took her liberties with the dragon. 

It made Erwin wonder what it was like to be owned by a person one wasn’t bonded with, to have to endure their touch when there was no reason to accept it. It was yet another grim factor that the detective hadn’t considered. 

They were all relieved to see the catwalk. There was even a hint of it on Lyda’s face as she slid to the floor on the opposite side of the door from Erwin and Levi, claiming the corner for herself. Erwin was slower to settle, venturing a short way down the walkway even though the darkness would fold it all up again as soon as he took the flashlight away with him. When he did sit, he did so reluctantly, though it had been his own decision to stop. 

“The first shift is yours, Lyda. Keep your light out.”

“Fine.”

“Then come and wake me. Naam needs the rest.”

“Okay.”

“Naam isn’t the only one,” Levi observed, reaching to take the flashlight from Erwin. He switched it off and set it aside, plunging them all into darkness without any concern for Lyda’s abrupt,  _ hey!  _ A leg passed across Erwin’s lap, a slight disturbance in the dead air where Levi moved to straddle him. “When this shitshow is over you need to sleep long and hard.”

“So do you.” 

“Yeah.” He settled his weight over Erwin’s thighs--slowly, like he was trying it on for size. He leaned close to the man’s ear, his hands on his shoulders so he could speak quietly. “So. On a scale of one to ten, how badly  _ do _ you want to touch my ass?” 

“Fifteen,” Erwin answered honestly. 

“I knew Lyda would be a shitty Erwin. Eleven,” he scoffed, reaching down to pull Erwin’s hands up to the ass in question. “What garbage.” 

“The deformity thing--”

“Please. She didn’t even know what word she wanted.”

Erwin found himself petting Levi’s ass more than anything, smoothing his hands over the taut leather. “Objectively speaking, you are a very handsome dragon.”

“I don’t trust your objectivity,” Levi yawned against his neck. “But I believe you mean that, so I’ll take it.” He shifted in Erwin’s lap, probably trying to figure out what to do with his legs, so the detective parted his own, allowing Levi to fall through. The drake twisted sideways, aligning the side of his body with Erwin’s front, then he shoved his face into the side of the man’s neck and breathed in slowly, as relaxed as he was going to get.

Erwin didn’t recall falling asleep. He didn’t recall thinking about very much before he got there, either. His exhaustion overtook him like a hard current and dragged him under. One moment he was breathing in the smell of Levi’s (admittedly filthy) hair and the next he found himself lurching awake, startled by the introduction of someone’s boot to the outside of his thigh. 

“Erwin,” Naam hissed. She wasn’t looking at him. Her body was half-turned, flashlight pointed back over her shoulder. It moved quickly like she wanted it everywhere at once, waking Levi as well as she stepped over Erwin’s legs and sank into a crouch. “Erwin.”

“I’m up.” 

“What the fuck?” Levi groaned.  _ “What?” _

“Lyda is gone.”

Erwin reached around Levi, pressing him to his chest so he could sit them both up more fully. There was a catch in his back that he didn’t recall being there, and he wasn’t immediately worried about Lyda. “Has she gone to the restroom?”

“She’s been gone too long for that. I was half awake waiting to see if she came back. She hasn’t.”

“Are you sure she isn’t taking a shit?” Levi asked. “That stick she has up her ass would stop anybody up.”

“Not unless there’s something very wrong with her,” Naam answered quickly. “I found blood.” 


	36. Nine Levels Deep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They find Lyda ... and some other folks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  *****HEADS UP Y'ALL*****  
>  There is some gruesomeness in this chapter. It's about canon-typical in terms of violence, but there's a horror movie style to it that may bother some people.

Erwin kneeled over the blood with his flashlight, but it didn't do him much good. There was no way to tell how much there had been. Most had escaped through the metal grate, leaving little to guess at except the diameter of the puddle. Still, there was enough blood there to make the detective wonder how long Lyda had.

“I can't tell how bad this was. ”

“Do you think she went over the edge?” Levi asked, his eyes sliding sideways to Naam, who was bent thoughtfully over a second flashlight and searching their surroundings for more blood. At the look Erwin gave him, he shrugged. “What? I would do it.”

“Do what?” Naam asked.

“Throw Lyda over the side,” Levi answered before Erwin could stop him. 

The other dragon blinked in surprise, glancing past them at the rail. “I hadn't thought of that.” She appeared to be thinking about it just then, though, trying to decide if she would have done it. Finally, she shook her head. “I’m not sure I could.”

“Even if she came after you, herself?” Levi asked her, clearly uncomprehending. “Would you stand there and let her kill you?” 

“Uh--” Naam looked away, frowning. “I don’t think so.”

“That’s something you have to think about?” Levi glanced at Erwin, his suspicion clear. 

Naam didn’t answer. She seemed troubled by the turn their conversation had taken--moreso than by Lyda’s disappearance, which she was taking more or less in stride. Apathy was one thing, but if they were dealing with emotional shock it could become dangerous for them later depending on how that shock came to a head.

“Naam,” Erwin asked her carefully. “Lyda may be badly injured. She may be dead.”

“I know.” The dragon was looking at her feet, objective momentarily forgotten. “I’ve never seen anyone die before. I wouldn’t have known how to do it myself. I mean, logistically I know how, just …” 

“You wouldn’t have been able to. I understand,” Erwin decided. “But she didn’t bleed for nothing. If it wasn’t you, then we’ve confirmed that our stalkers are hostile.”

“Stalkers?”

Erwin nodded. “Plural, most likely. One orphaned youngling doesn’t do all of this by himself. Is it possible they mistook Lyda for a dragon?”  

“Not a chance,” Levi answered. “The pheromones on us are too strong.”

Erwin had thought that might be the case. “If that’s so, then our assumptions about what kind of violence is allowed down here were wrong. Setting obstacles is one thing, but deliberately targeting humans is illegal no matter what country you’re in or what waiver you’ve signed. That means that whatever is going on, it wasn’t sanctioned by the race officials.”

“All bets are off then,” Levi concluded. “The rulebook is gone. I won’t be careful not to kill any humans with your life on the line.”

Naam snorted. “Until one of you disappears. Then we’ll see how deep your bond goes.”

Levi’s head jerked around sharply, but his voice was perfect neutrality when he answered. “Don’t compare us to yourselves. You’re barely a dragon and Lyda is barely a human. Neither of you has any experience with bonds.”

“Oh? You think what you have is any better? How do  _ you _ get to be so superior?” The insult there was far from implied.

“Stop,” Erwin told them sharply. “We have a mine full of enemies and a missing person to search for. Now is not the time.”

Levi and Naam stared at each other for another handful of seconds, but Naam broke away first with a huff. “She’s back the way we came. Her blood goes that way.”

“Then that’s the way we go. Gather your things and form up.”

“What?” Naam asked, startled. “That’s the wrong way. We can’t just--”

“Go and save her even though doing so is a risk for all of us?” Levi drawled. “I tend to agree, but unlike ourselves, Erwin is a decent person. Form up or go on ahead. We can always catch up to your bloody remains--I mean  _ you.” _

Looking truly stricken for the first time since she woke them up, Naam’s eyes darted between Levi and Erwin and found no compromise between them. 

“You can stay here if you would rather,” the detective offered. “But Levi is correct. Splitting up is a good way to single yourself out for them. They would target you first.” 

“This is crazy,” the dragon murmured, though she moved quickly to gather her things. “We’ll never get out of here at this rate.” She unzipped both bags and dumped everything onto the floor, repacking the items she must have thought were most useful. “Take what you want from this,” she told them, gesturing to the pile of unwanted things.

“What are you doing?” Erwin asked. As he watched her, he had to admit to a growing concern for the dragon’s mental stability, but when she answered, her logic was surprisingly sound.

“I’m not running this race. As soon as I’m out of here I’m flying out of the red zone and calling for evacuation. If Lyda is with me and all of our supplies are intact, she’ll want to continue. I’m not giving her that option.” The dragon stood and pointedly dropped her tent over the rail, then her saddle and cook stove. 

Erwin eyed her speculatively. “I assume you’re not going to tell her about this executive decision you’re making.”

“No. This shit was lost when she was. And I’m sure you’ll keep it a secret because you don’t like her and you don’t like the competition. She’ll fly me until I die if it means catching up with you. And I can tell that you don’t want to do the same to Levi.”

“He wouldn’t,” Levi contradicted, though he kneeled over the pile of discarded items and began picking things out like batteries and flashlights and several glow sticks like the one they’d used earlier. It was no wonder he went first for the illumination and then for the food, considering their situation, but Erwin saw something of infinitely more value peeking out from beneath the folded edge of a tarp. 

“You aren’t taking your first aid kit?”

Naam shrugged. “I don’t plan to be out here long. Maybe another night, depending on how long it takes the officials to get to me. Or us. Whatever.” 

“We may need it for Lyda.” 

“She isn’t alive,” Naam stated confidently. “Why would she be? Take it for her, though, if it makes you feel better.”

Levi reached for it and passed it up to Erwin, who shrugged off his own bag to tuck it inside. They took a few other things as well--a second utility knife and multitool, some additional food rations, hats and gloves. The rest, they watched Naam load into the extra bag and throw over the edge. 

“I’ll keep carrying your saddle if you keep walking in front,” the dragon told them. “My bag is lighter now, anyway.” She took one of the knives she’d set aside and clipped the sheath to her belt, testing it to see if it slid out easily. Then, she hoisted their saddle onto her back and frowned at them. “Ready.”

The blood didn’t take them far. It became sparse as they walked, either blending with the gritty floor or disappearing entirely. It wasn’t as though there were many places they could have taken her, though. Anyone--youngling or adult--would have a hard time dragging an unwilling body back up an elevator shaft and there was no way to drop it any farther on that side of the mine, so Lyda would be in one of the refuge chambers if she wasn’t in the hallway itself. They checked each one, slow with caution and so primed with adrenaline that their muscles twitched. It took them hours to find her, and when it did, it happened suddenly. 

Levi saw her first. He actually raised the pickaxe in an instinctive reaction to seeing someone standing upright, only a hairsbreadth away from swinging. Only, Lyda wasn’t standing.

“Naam, back up into the hall.” Erwin moved to step in front of her, reaching out for the flashlight, but she pointed it around him and caught a complete eyeful. 

The sound she made was terrible, guttural, like she’d been caught by death himself. She shrank back, but Erwin was quicker, slamming a hand over her mouth and catching her by the back of the head so she couldn’t go any farther. She screamed again into his palm and it was muffled, but it was probably just as audible through the entire mine as the first had been. Her hands came up, taking an automatic swipe at Erwin that sent the flashlight flying away into the dark. Her nails hit his neck and gouged flesh, but they were not Levi’s nails, which would have taken out his jugular. These were the blunt, humanized version of a well-kept house-dragon. As the light spun wildly across the floor and threw nauseating bursts of shadow across the walls, Erwin yanked Naam around and got himself behind her without losing the hold he had on her mouth. 

“So much for stealth,” Levi muttered. His own light came on quickly, pointing back towards Erwin so he could see what he was doing. “Do you need me to hit her?” 

“No, I don’t think she’ll scream again.” The dragon was shaking against him, and violently, but her initial shock was gone. “Naam, you’re going to hyperventilate if you keep breathing that way. Take slower breaths. Naam.” He let the dragon go and she sank to the splintered tracks beneath her, her breathing unchanged. She put a hand over her own mouth, leaning forward over her knees like she was trying hard not to keep screaming. 

Erwin picked her fallen light from the floor and left it near her, then returned to Levi and Lyda, who hung suspended by one leg from a heavy chain set in the ceiling, its terminating hook curled somewhere between the two bones of her shin. It was one leg only. The other appeared to be missing, along with her arms, which had been carved off at the shoulder. Erwin looked around the room, but they had not been left there with the rest of her. Lyda’s throat had been opened and they had it draining into a filthy five gallon bucket like the kind they sold at home improvement stores. The knife they’d used was protruding from her abdomen like someone had left it there for safekeeping, its handle slippery with blood. 

“How did we miss that?” Levi wanted to know, his eyes on the ceiling. 

“The chain is new. The bolt they hung it on would have been easy to overlook.” 

“What have they done to her?” 

Erwin shook his head, glancing over his shoulder at Naam’s huddled form. “This looks like hunting,” he said quietly. “I don’t know why else they would need to drain her blood this way.”

“Hunting?” Levi repeated. “They’re hunting humans?”

“And dragons. It doesn’t look like it was wildlife that scavenged the bodies outside.”

“So all those missing pieces--”

“Yeah. It looks like.” 

“Dragons don’t eat other dragons,” Levi insisted. “We can’t. The pheromones are too strong. I couldn’t even eat a dragon and I’ve killed hundreds of them.” 

“These don’t appear to have that problem.” Erwin shook his head. “If they were starving, perhaps the instinct to survive became stronger than the instinct to avoid their own dead. And after that, maybe it was easy for them to continue.” 

Levi shook his head, but he didn’t have any other argument to make when the evidence was right in front of him. 

“We should take her down.”

“Don’t you fucking dare,” Levi growled, grabbing Erwin by the elbow and yanking him back out into the hall. “They’ll only hang her back up and we aren’t spending another goddamned second in here. This is  _ not _ going to be you.” 

“Levi.”

“I’m not losing my shit,” the dragon snapped. Then he took a deep breath and added calmly. “I just won’t let that be you. We’re going.”

Erwin paused, then nodded. “Alright. Naam, can you walk?”

She barely seemed able to catch her breath, her eyes wide and shocked and uncomprehending when they swiveled up to see who was addressing her. 

“Can you walk, Naam?” Erwin repeated. 

The dragon did not reply, but she stood, stumbling and shaky but dragging their saddle up with her. When they handed her a light, she took it automatically, but they had to tell her several times to get back into formation. 

“Why?” she croaked at them a while later. They were checking every refuge chamber they passed for the third time, but even Levi in his rush to get them out of there agreed that caution was better than speed in their current situation. “Why was she like that?”

“I don’t know,” Erwin lied easily. “The people here are sick.”

“Are they going to do it to the rest of us?”

“They can  _ try,”  _ Levi muttered. 

“How good are you guys really? Can they overpower you?”

“Enough of them, maybe,” Erwin told her honestly, “but our chances are good if we keep it together. You can do that, too, right?”

“I’m fine.” 

“They’re not going to let us just walk out of here,” Levi said. “We’re too valuable to them. We’re fighting our way out and it’s going to start soon. You’d better learn how to kill somebody or you’re not going to survive.” 

Naam glanced down at the knife on her hip, nodding. “I think I can after … that. I don’t want to die that way.” 

“Good.” 

They reached the catwalk where they’d left off, pausing briefly there to let their heartbeats settle. Naam still looked shaken, but she was steadier. She was hanging in there remarkably well for a person who’d seen something so horrible for the first time, much less seen it done to someone she grew up with. That had to be troubling no matter how difficult the relationship had been. 

“I’m sorry for your loss, Naam.” 

The dragon shook her head, dazed. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll just go to Lyda’s sister. She’ll be about that age soon. She’s spoiled rotten, but she’s nicer than Lyda is. Was. She doesn’t have the same temper.” 

Levi stared at her, uncomprehending. “I get that the woman was a shit, but you’re not upset at all?”

“Should I be?” Naam asked blandly. “They told me all my life how I should think and how I should behave, but my emotions are my own. I don’t have to care about Lyda. That’s the one thing they couldn’t force from me.” 

“I realize that you don’t have to, but these things aren’t exactly voluntary. You feel what you feel.” 

“I didn’t choose not to care about her. I just don’t. I did when we were younger. I loved her like a sister back then. But time changes relationships. It will change yours too.” 

Levi’s lips parted in shock. He darted a glance at Erwin and it was something almost like fear, but he didn’t seem to know what he wanted to say about it. Erwin opened his mouth to tell him  something--to point out that relationships were different and they evolved in different ways--but something shifted below them. The glow stick was still down there at the bottom of the chasm, its ethereal glow providing little light from beneath that much murky water, but it was enough that they noticed when a shadow passed over it.

“What is that?” Naam breathed. She didn’t protest when Levi snatched the flashlight from her hands and turned it off.

“Something big,” Erwin answered quietly. “It was big enough to obscure all that diffused light, not just the glow stick itself.” 

“No,” Levi murmured. “Jesus no, it’s a fucking water dragon.” 

“That’s good though, isn’t it?” Naam asked them. “They can’t follow us out in their natural forms. They have no wings. Once we clear the water--”

“Where do you think we have to go  _ first  _ you scum-spitting dumbass?” Levi hissed. “That whole level is a watery shitshow the same length as this one and it is  _ all. Flooded.” _

Erwin reached out and took Levi by the hand, lacing their fingers together and squeezing. It was remarkable to him that he had mentioned his concern for Erwin’s life more frequently than his own. It meant that Erwin would have to watch out for him just as closely, because Levi would not be fighting for himself. He’d be fighting for Erwin and that meant that he wouldn’t be watching his own ass as closely as he should. Erwin moved them over to the rail and looked down, but there was nothing left to see except the water where it sloshed a touch too exuberantly.

“Can they lift themselves far enough out of the water to reach us up here?” 

Levi studied the distance briefly. “A large one could, no problem.”

“We go across quietly, then. No lights. When the handrail stops we turn them back on and continue.” 

“I certainly don’t want to cross with a shiny yellow bullseye in my hand,” Levi agreed. “Get your light, Naam, and be ready to switch it on.” 

“There’s one other thing,” Erwin realized. He’d been smelling it for a while without realizing, thinking it was the water. It was certainly rising from the chasm, or from the level below them, but it wasn’t simply filth. “Do you smell that?” 

“The ass smell?”

“That’s methane gas. Do you remember what I said about methane?” 

“I haven’t been thinking about anything  _ except _ what you said about methane since we got down here. Methane and water dragons and cave-ins and unstable dynamite.”

Water dragons didn’t have flame bladders. The same organ that fueled a terrestrial dragon’s fire functioned as a modified lung for the water species, allowing them to breathe air in addition to the water they pushed through their gills. That was the one thing their group had going for them right then. The only two dragons they had to keep from blowing them all up were Levi and Naam. 

“It keeps getting worse,” Levi grumbled. 

“Could we drop a match down there, or would it blow us up, too?” Naam asked from just behind them. 

Erwin made a doubtful sound. “It isn’t something I would risk. If we’re close enough to ignite the methane with a match, we’re too close to the resulting explosion. We don’t know how far we need to be before it isn’t concentrated enough to burn us.”

“Also, there would be no way out except the entrance, which is a dead end. Erwin and I need to finish this race. It isn’t just an exotic vacation for us.” 

“Yeah?” Naam challenged. “What reason do you have to finish? I mean you personally, not you as Erwin’s mount.” 

“The DCA is going to put me in a government lab and infect me with MARV-d as an experiment to see how quickly I become contagious and die unless Erwin has some legitimate legal claim on me like the obedience certificate they give out at the end of the race.” 

“... Oh. That sucks.” 

“Yes. So Erwin didn’t need a dragon. I needed a rider.”

“Are you both ready to move?” Erwin asked them, nudging Levi and crossing to the other side of the catwalk. It wasn’t much darker there than it was on the near side, but he would take every little bit he could get. “Come over here, Naam.”

“Just a second,” she answered as Levi’s body moved in close to Erwin’s, arriving at the rail just behind him. “I can’t tell where--nevermind. I got it.” 

They creeped rather than walked over the chasm, freezing when the faint gurgle of moving water alerted them to the presence of another creature below. The light moved like a living thing of its own, twisting restlessly over the walls in a sickening, muddy green. Erwin placed his feet with care, remembering how sound carried through the chamber. When his hand fell off the end of the rail and they hadn’t been attacked, he was surprised. It had felt like a shorter walk than it had been, despite their caution in the dark. He reached behind him to pull Levi away from the rail so Naam would not run into him as they stopped. 

“We’re here,” he said quietly. “Form up.” 

Naam used the sound of his voice to slide in behind them, flicking on the flashlight and pointing it ahead. One moment, everything was silent and then, just as the light rose he heard it--the rustle of motion and the soft fall of bare feet on dirt. Then, in a violent flash, they were right in front of him, filthy and wild with long blades and blackened, grimacing teeth. The first one struck Erwin hard enough that he went down heavily on his back, all the wind knocked out of him but otherwise unharmed. He’d seen the man in time to trap his knife hand beneath his arm, wrenching up on the shoulder until a wet-sounding pop and an inarticulate howl let him know that he’d successfully dislocated the joint. Erwin used that moment to reach up and catch his chin, fisting his other in the matted hair and yanking sharply to one side.

The man fell into a heap over Erwin’s chest, his elliptical eyes still wide with pain.

Another dragon was on top of him before he could roll the first one off, scrabbling for Erwin’s neck with rough fingers. The detective had dropped his pickaxe when he fell, but it hadn’t gone far. He stretched his arm as far as he could make it go, feeling around blindly until he found the wooden handle he wanted. Closing his eyes, he turned his head and swung. The point sank into flesh, though the second man made no more sound than the first--a quiet “Oomph,” the only indication he gave that he wouldn’t be getting back up.

Somewhere behind him, Naam was crying out, audibly struggling against one of their attackers. Erwin shoved the pair of bodies off of him to turn and help, but there was Levi in front holding one struggling female at bay as he fought off another drake. The choice was a simple one to make. He lunged forward and swung, burying the axe right between the other male’s shoulder blades. He dropped straight down with a grunt, freeing Levi's hands to finish the female. 

The chasm fell abruptly silent. 

“Naam?” Erwin called into the dark. She had dropped the flashlight in her struggle to survive, taking off down the catwalk to god only knew where. 

“I'm here,” she assured them. “I was nicked, but it isn't bad. I may need that first aid kit from you after all.”

“Are you bleeding badly or can it wait?”

“It can wait.”

“Are they all dragons?”

“They were,” Levi answered. “Now they're worm meat.”

Erwin counted five in total. That, plus whatever they’d heard moving below them made for quite a large family group. 

“They aren’t all water dragons,” Naam said quietly. She nudged one of Erwin’s with the tip of her boot. “This one is a terrestrial. And mine was. I’m around a lot of different bloodlines. The aquas smell different.”

Levi breathed in, frowning, but he didn’t appear to draw the same conclusion. “Moblit is the only water dragon I know.” He stepped over one of the bodies to retrieve his pickaxe. “Are you okay, Erwin?” 

“I’m fine, thank you. Just bruised.” The truth was, he’d have to see if Levi would take a look at his back later. Something in his bag had gotten him pretty good when he fell on it--the corner of the camp stove if he was guessing. He wasn’t sure if that pain was the start of a deep bruise or a small fracture in the back of his ribs. He could breathe okay, so it wasn’t serious, but doing so was painful. There was no sense bringing it up then, or stopping to analyze it too closely. They still had one more level to go. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A couple of people so far have requested drabbles for this fic. For now, I'm collecting these solely on [my tumblr](http://merkase.tumblr.com) filed under the "wt-drabbles" tag, but I may put them here eventually as well. 
> 
> [Allure](http://merkase.tumblr.com/post/150874687234/wild-type-allure) was requested by Anon, who wanted a fic from Levi’s POV describing his initial experiences with the allure.
> 
> [Like A Boss](http://merkase.tumblr.com/post/151200089724/wild-type-like-a-boss) is a Mike/Nanaba fic requested by Anon, who wanted to see how the MikeNana power dynamic began.


	37. The Sun'll Come Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What to do when the light at the end of the tunnel is guarded by cannibals.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OHMYGOD F I N A L L Y
> 
> I'm sorry this took so long to get out. These past several weeks have been a wild ride, but I'm slowly catching up and as soon as I finish cleaning my floor I'll move right on along to Tempest. This week we are having unsexy water monsters in one story and totally sexy water monsters in the other. =DDDDDDD

The elevator on the farthest end of the mine was just as grounded and useless as the first. Its cables hung severed and lifeless down the shaft it blocked--more or less. The top of the cab had been thoughtfully torn open to admit them, the thin metal peeled back in long, curled strips that offered a way down.

“How inviting,” Erwin mentioned, ignoring the faint twinge along his ribcage when he crouched to touch the metal. “The edges are sharp.”

Levi reached out to take Erwin by the shoulder, either steadying him or using him for balance as he leaned forward to look for himself. “They’re drawing us in. You know that, don’t you?”

Erwin grunted his agreement. “They left this end open to control which direction we came from. Waiting until we made it this far ensures that we encounter them down there in the water where they have an advantage.”

“That’s what I thought. Water dragons.” 

“So, we’re just going to walk on in and let them butcher us?” Naam stepped back, shaking her head. “Why? They won’t expect us to turn around here. If we go now we can leave through the entrance.”

Levi glanced at Erwin and the expression wasn’t anything he’d been expecting. They’d come to an understanding out there in the woods about what they would risk for each other, but that was almost guilt in the drake’s eyes. 

“I meant what I told you.”

Levi opened his mouth to say something, but he paused, his fingers tightening on the detective’s shoulder. “If you lower me down, I could take my dragon form once I’m in the water, then you could drop onto my back. Nobody splashes that way.”

“We’re not going back?” Naam demanded to know.  _ “Why?” _

“Erwin and I aren’t. You can do whatever you like.” Levi shrugged out of his bag and reached out for the man. 

“We can’t guarantee that going back will be safe for us, either,” Erwin told Naam, taking both of Levi’s forearms just below the elbow and backing him to the edge of the elevator. The drake didn’t glance behind him as they moved, nor did he look at Naam, his eyes steady on Erwin’s face. “When you’re in your dragon form, don’t fill your flame bladder at all. You don’t need a spark to ignite this much methane. You just need enough heat.”

Levi nodded once, his lips thin with unspoken displeasure. 

“Ready?”

“Been waiting.”

Erwin snorted, tightening his grip on Levi and lifting him carefully off the ground. He was heavier than he had once been, carrying a solid, healthy weight that he hadn’t had on him when they first met. All the same, it still wasn’t terribly difficult to pass him down through the top of the elevator. Erwin’s back lit up when he kneeled to get the drake lower, but his corresponding grunt could have been taken for an ordinary sound of effort. When Levi was as low as he was going to get, Erwin let him slip, loosening his fingers and catching the drake again by the hands. 

“Are you in the water?” 

He took Levi’s grim, “I don’t want to discuss it,” as an affirmative. 

“I’m letting you go, then.” 

“Hurry up before I get an infection.” 

Erwin relaxed his hands completely, hearing only a soft splash as Levi dropped. It was the best possible result, even if a splash was still a splash. They had underestimated the water level and Levi’s head went under just long enough to completely douse him. He came up gagging and stricken, spitting filthy water, but he didn’t stay in his human form long enough to complain about it. He changed as soon as he realized he wasn’t drowning, his body rocking the elevator as something--his tail, probably--hit the inside of the cage a touch too forcefully. 

“Careful.”

The dragon growled, heavy and low with the full capacity of his enormous chest.

“Why is he doing that?” Naam asked quickly. Her eyes were round when they landed on Erwin. 

The detective glanced at her, still kneeling to shift through his bag for one last thing they needed. “He doesn’t like feeling unclean.” 

“Unclean?” Naam echoed faintly. “He gets aggressive that way when he feels unclean?” 

“He gets grouchy. I wouldn’t call it aggressive.” 

“He’s--” Naam lowered her voice quickly. “He’s  _ growling _ at you!” 

“Yes, he is.” Erwin would have to chalk that one up to one of those weird things that ‘civilized’ dragons did differently from others. He didn’t have time right then to delve too deeply into the subject, especially once his fingers closed over the item he needed. 

“What are you going to do with that?” Naam asked, her voice rising in alarm. “You just told Levi not to fill his flame bladder not a minute ago because we’d all blow up!”

“It’s our last resort,” Erwin answered briskly, sticking the lighter between his teeth and stepping up for his turn with the elevator. He found a section of metal that looked a little less sharp than the rest and eased himself down, using more muscle control than was strictly necessary for the sake of avoiding any sudden jolts that would send that rusty edge jutting into his palms. Levi was watching for him, leaning sideways so that Erwin was able to slide silently onto his back. So far, so good.

“Pass the saddle down first, Naam,” he removed the lighter briefly to say. Then it went right back between his teeth so he could reach up for the bundle of fabric and leather that Naam sent his way. He eased from Levi’s back into the water beside him to latch the buckles together, offering Hanji his silent thanks once again for insisting he learn to do it by heart before they left, because he was doing it mostly by feel right then. The majority of the straps were beneath Levi and, therefore, beneath the dark water. He was just about as soaked as the dragon had been when he finally climbed back into the saddle and moved their lighter to his sleeve. “Levi’s bag, next. I’m strapping yours up, Levi, but I’m leaving mine on my back in case we have to bail you out of the saddle and leave it behind. We’d still have at least one bag that way.” 

The drake turned and nudged Erwin’s knee until he paused to touch his nose. “We can’t leave Naam up there by herself for long,” he said, running his hand briefly along the hard plates on Levi’s face. Down there in the dark, they were the same rich black as the mine itself, though Erwin doubted Levi would respond favorably to the observation. “Will the one bag overbalance you?”

The drake shook his head, taking Erwin’s leg carefully between his teeth and shoving it more or less at the sling that was meant to hold him in the saddle. 

“Yeah, I can stay up here.” It would certainly be more strategically advantageous to give him some additional height over the water. He would be able to literally watch Levi’s back that way, swinging at the same level as the dragons that would be attacking them. He finished attaching the saddle bag and reached up to take the pick axes that Naam passed down to him, then the flashlight, which he handed off to Levi for him to hold. He did a pretty good job pointing it back up for them to see what they were doing, especially considering he had the eye on that side half-closed. 

Naam came next, though she had to jump straight down so that Erwin could catch her and ease her down into the water. 

“Thanks,” the dragon muttered, letting go of Erwin as quickly as possible and reaching up to take the flashlight from Levi. 

“Take an axe, too. We need everyone armed.”

“How do you properly …”

“Just don’t swing so hard it comes back around and nicks you if you miss.”

Naam took the axe without confidence, but Erwin had no doubt she’d be happy to have it in a short while. The other, he left sitting across his knees so he could turn on a second light to aim ahead of them. In theory, the things were waterproof. He had a feeling they were about to test the manufacturer’s claims. 

“Levi won’t be able to turn around without shifting first,” Erwin told her. “I need you behind us watching the way we came. If you hear anything move back there, call it out even if you’re uncertain.” 

Naam nodded, wiping the light on her racing leathers and sticking it into her own mouth with a pinched expression. 

“My guess is, they’ll wait until we’ve reached the chasm. The water will be deepest there, and it’s open enough for an attack. That doesn’t mean they’ll limit themselves to that location, though, so we all need to stay vigilant.” 

Naam nodded again, her eyes wide. 

Erwin had to bend forward slightly once they stepped out of the elevator, forcing him to peer around the side of Levi’s neck at the tunnel ahead rather than look over the top of his head. It wasn’t terribly different from the position he rode in, though the way Erwin’s ribs complained about it didn’t bode well for his endurance. He had a feeling they’d be taking it slow for a couple of days, but after all that had happened, he doubted Levi would protest.

They weren’t in a great position to keep checking refuge chambers, but it also wasn’t something they could safely neglect so they compensated by advancing carefully and watching for ripples in the water that did not belong to them. Naam shone the light into doorways for Levi to peer into, Erwin poised to hit anything that came too far out. It was awkward, but it was the best they could manage. Erwin would bet that protecting their front would be their greatest concern, anyhow. It just wasn’t practical for a dragon to hide in their human form in a small closet full of water for the length of time an ambush would take to set up. Even a water type would quickly become hypothermic under those conditions. 

And Erwin was right. When Levi went rigid beneath him, all his attention was aimed ahead of them, not to the side. A quick wave to Naam had her freezing in the water beside them, raising her flashlight over Levi’s wing in the hope that it would reach farther. Erwin watched their small ripples advance into the darkness, disappearing beyond their sight like radio signals seeking an antenna. Naam lifted her chin, breathing in deeply as she tried to catch a scent through the thickening veil of methane, but she turned to frown up at Erwin, shaking her head. 

“Did you see something?” she whispered. 

“Hush.”

The truth was, there was nothing to see and less to hear. Water dripped into water as steadily as a heartbeat and none of them made any note of that. They'd all been listening to it in some degree for hours. There was no telling what had Levi stopping the way he did, but Erwin trusted it. He aligned his profile with the dragon's and gripped the saddle a little harder with his knees and had no doubt in his mind that there was something coming for them. 

_ There.  _

They’d sent ripples into the dark and the dark sent some back, larger and more pronounced than they’d been when Levi made them. They sloshed faintly as they broke around the drake’s chest, but Erwin didn’t dare look down to watch them. He didn’t dare look anywhere but straight ahead.

_ Good catch, Levi.  _

Still, nothing came. Whatever waited along the tunnel still seemed to think it had the element of surprise in its favor. So they countered the waiting with more waiting, poised at a frozen standstill while they  _ waited _ to find out if the water dragon would ever realize why they’d stopped. Evidently, the creature wasn’t terribly bright. Erwin wondered unforgivingly if they’d been down there long enough for inbreeding to become a factor. Finally, he sighed. 

“Are you coming to kill us or do you plan to wait until old age has done the job for you?”

“Erwin!” Naam gasped. 

“It knows we’re here and we know it’s there. There’s no sense in standing around letting Levi marinate in slop water.” 

Beneath him, the drake’s ribs spread wide, and it felt so similar to the way his flame bladder filled that Erwin was right on the verge of a warning when Levi’s head drew back and he screeched. In the close confines of the mine, amplified by acoustics and water, the sound was deafening. Erwin could hear the challenge in it, daring the others to respond, and they did. Ringing back from somewhere deeper in the mine--the chasm, it had to be--came a chorus of hoarse voices calling out their acceptance. Erwin counted  _ two, three, five, eight.  _ How many of were there?

“Oh my god,” Naam moaned. “What have you done?”

Something just down the hallway shifted. It was all the warning any of them got before the distance between themselves and the lurker was abruptly closed. Even charging at them it barely made a sound--a relatively small slosh of water for such an enormous creature. Erwin got an impression of barbed fins cutting the surface, of a long back twisting like a ribbon, and then all the cautionary yards they’d left ahead of them were gone and it was the teeth Erwin found himself focused on. 

The water dragon didn’t immediately see that Levi’s back was occupied. Erwin had dropped his own flashlight in favor of freeing both his hands for the pick axe in his lap. The dragon was going for the most threatening target it saw, lunging up from the water and slinging Levi into the wall with such force that if Erwin’s leg had been caught between the two it would have been crushed. Their attacker’s jaw was longer than any terrestrial dragon’s, narrow like a barracuda’s and filled with curved, backwards-facing teeth. That terrible mouth snapped closed around Levi’s neck like a bear trap, missing Erwin’s face so narrowly that the detective felt the rank heat sliding from between its teeth. The water dragon’s bony eyelid rested half closed and the protective membrane slid back to reveal a pupil that locked on Erwin’s face and froze there. 

“Surprise.” 

Erwin braced his shins in their slings and rose from the saddle, swinging down with the pick axe as hard as his body would physically allow. For a moment, he thought the dragon’s skull would be too thick. There was a brief moment of resistance and it gave Erwin approximately one fourth of a second to contemplate the proximity of that crushing jaw before the point broke through. Bone snapped and gave way, cracking beneath the metal as Erwin leaned in to force the axe deeper. The dragon barely made a sound. Its hold on Levi slackened, yanking the wooden handle from Erwin’s hands as it dropped, twitching, into the water.

“Levi, how badly are you hurt?”

The drake shook his head, turning to nudge Erwin’s knee with his nose. 

“It may not have gotten him,” Naam said shakily. She’d backed into the far wall in all the chaos. “The plates along our necks are pretty tough.”

Levi snorted like he agreed, but Erwin leaned forward in the saddle to brush his hands over him anyway. The slippery saliva he put his palms into was not tinted red, but Erwin would be taking a closer look at it later. “We need to move on. If Levi is bleeding under there, it needs attending to. Naam, would you--”

“Yeah.” She passed her pickaxe up to Erwin and stepped around Levi to retrieve the second. It required more than one hard wrench to loosen, but it did finally come free with a wet pop that had Naam grimaging. “Ugh. That’s disgusting.”

“We won’t get this lucky again. I doubt the others are unaware of what just happened.”

“How  _ much _ of what just happened?” Naam asked doubtfully as she squinted deeper into the tunnel. 

“Enough that they probably won’t send any others up here. They’ll wait until the advantage is theirs. Thank you,” he added as she handed him the flashlight he’d dropped as well. 

Levi grumbled his agreement, opening his wings the few feet that the tunnel would allow and settling them back into place along his body like a bird shaking off an unpleasant ruffle in its plumage. He shouldered the long corpse aside so he could pass, unbothered by the faint spasms that still ran through the dead flesh.

Despite their momentary safety, they moved along the tunnel at a pace that only barely topped their previous one, looking into each refuge chamber more for the sake of thoroughness than any honest belief that the rooms would be occupied. It was still a long, nail-biting walk to the center chasm, during which Erwin had to forcibly relax some of his muscles multiple times. He’d been in tense situations before, of course, but most of them were over long before they’d been drawn out this long. That was the thing about being a cop. When things went bad, they tended to go bad quickly. There wasn’t typically much time for the tension to build. Only one occasion had ever come close. 

Before he made detective, Erwin had been the first on scene at a domestic dispute that escalated into a hostage situation. Evidently, the perpetrator had decided that he and Erwin had a rapport because he refused to speak with the proper hostage negotiator when he arrived. For forty hours, Erwin had functioned as the negotiator’s mouthpiece, relaying word for word what needed to be said and praying to anyone listening that the perpetrator did not decide to shoot everyone inside.

Until recently, the hostage situation had been the longest forty hours of his life. 

“Hey,” Naam murmured. “Is that it?”

They were just about far enough by his estimation to have reached the chasm, but the light ahead was so faint that it took several moments for Erwin to be certain. “I think it is.” He ran one hand down Levi’s shoulder. “We need to be in agreement before we go any farther. Would you both prefer a quick death to being eaten?”

Levi turned his head to look with one eye at Erwin’s face, but did not indicate either way how he felt. 

Naam was not so trusting. “I would prefer not to die  _ at all, _ ” she snapped, though a sharp intake of breath defeated her vehemence. “I’m sorry, that was rude.”

“We may not have that option.” Erwin pulled the lighter from his sleeve and palmed it carefully so it was easily accessible. “If you had to choose one of two ways, would you rather be butchered and eaten or incinerated?”

Naam stepped back, her shoulder blades hitting the wall, where she leaned like she needed the strength. “That’s what you have that for?” 

Levi snorted derisively.  _ Obviously,  _ he’d said.

“If we’re cornered and you have to choose,” Erwin prompted.

“I don’t know! I don’t know, I don’t sit around thinking about things like that! How am I supposed to know which would be worse?”

“Think about it now. I need you to know when you reach the chasm that you do not fear incineration--that you prefer it to letting them have you. They need to see that decisiveness in your face.”

Naam shook her head quickly. “I can’t. I  _ don’t _ fucking know that!”

“I’ll lay it out for you then, so you can make an informed decision. When they killed Lyda, they hung her upside-down over a bucket and they slit her throat. That isn’t as quick or as painless as you might imagine. By the look of her limbs, she was still alive when they removed them and possibly conscious.” Erwin honestly had no idea if Lyda had been aware of her dismemberment. Without an autopsy, he couldn’t know if it had happened just before or just after her death, but either one was possible. “Incineration is quick by comparison. You’ll experience a brief moment of agony before your nerves have been destroyed, and after that you’ll feel nothing. Come with us only if you prefer this to the alternative. If not, turn back and take your chances with the mine behind us.”

Erwin held eye contact for a few moments, taking in her pale face and wide eyes before he turned away and murmured. “Go ahead, Levi.”

It was a long moment before Naam moved, sloshing hurriedly through the water after them. “Both of you are fucking insane,” she growled, and she didn’t apologize that time for any rudeness. “Who goes this goddamn far for a race?”

“Levi dies if we don’t finish.”

“You’ve said. But  _ you _ don’t. How do you expect me to believe that you’re putting your own life on the line to save one dragon when you can just go out and buy yourself another one? There are thousands of us--”

“I don’t particularly care what you believe,” Erwin answered, nudging Levi so he’d stop growling. “As long as you believe it in silence.” He nodded ahead of them to the chasm that was coming up on them rather quickly. “No more talking until we’re there.”

Naam muttered something that sounded like another  _ fucking insane  _ but didn’t say anything more. The only sound after that was water being pushed aside and Naam’s harsh, almost panicked gasps for breath. The light ahead of them shifted ominously with the movement of many bodies--long, undulating shifts that rose the hair along the back of Erwin’s neck. The water dragons weren’t hiding their presence up there. They weren’t bothering with an ambush and something about that confidence was fully disconcerting. 

For a moment, nothing happened when they stepped onto the flooded catwalk. “Hold on, Levi,” he said quietly, barely a whisper of sound as he motioned for Naam to stop. 

The water beyond the catwalk rail was much deeper than it was where they stood, so the chasm did run farther into the ground than the bottom of the mine. How far it went was difficult to say. The glow stick they’d thrown down was dying out, losing the last of its light to the water around it, and it rested on the edge of the catwalk with some unfathomable blackness spread below.  _ But. _

The glow stick was not the reason they were able to see their surroundings. It was dimmed by water, but there was no mistaking the bright slash of daylight hovering there just beneath the surface. Erwin was certain on seeing it that there was nothing else--no exit except for the one that nature had fashioned. There would not be another door on the far side, only a dead end and water dragons. 

Between the catwalk and the exit, a dozen bodies rolled. 

“Levi.”

The drake had already noticed. His eyes were locked on that fissure too, calculating their chances. He wasn’t going to win a fight in the water--not without his feet planted on the bottom at the very least. They’d drag them both under and drown them without giving them half a chance to fight back. For all of Levi’s fighting experience, he couldn’t take on so many under such unfavorable conditions and without a flame bladder at that. 

“Can you squeeze through there in this form?” 

Levi nodded faintly. 

One after another, heads were rising, floating like crocodiles half-submerged or coming completely out of the water in groups of twos and threes and fours. All around them there were dragons. As they showed themselves, it was clear that it was far more than a dozen. Even two dozen was estimating low. None of them moved terribly quickly. Their approach was languid, unconcerned, but they  _ were _ coming. 

“Naam, get your flashlight on my right hand.”

“W-wha?”

_ “Now.” _

The light was shaky, but serviceable. Erwin saw a couple sets of eyes lift, but few of the dragons stopped moving. 

“This is a lighter,” Erwin called into the chasm. His voice carried easily, bouncing around the walls and clearly audible to every ear present. He turned the little device over in his fingers so they could see it. A few paused, but it was confusion more than caution that made them hesitate. Few of them were comprehending the significance of what Erwin had.

“It smells pretty strongly of methane in here,” the man observed, his voice steady enough to make two or three more of them slow to a stop. “In fact, I imagine that if you didn’t have gills you wouldn’t be able to breathe for long. Judging by the way my head is swimming, it’s so highly concentrated in this chamber that a little stray heat would blow this whole mine to hell.”

Most of the water dragons had stopped moving by that point, though there were a few that still drifted slowly through the water towards them, too focused on the prospect of prey to concern themselves with what that prey was saying. 

“The miners probably vented all this methane through that opening you’re guarding there, but that would have been before it flooded, when they were still pumping water out.” Erwin glanced pointedly at the lake around them. So did the dragons. “Where does it all go now that it’s plugged? I’d stop your friends, now.”

One of the dragons cried out hoarsely, echoed by another, and then another, and the few who were still advancing stopped, looking around in confusion at (presumably) their elders. There. He had every ear.

“We all just finished agreeing that we would rather burn in a methane explosion than be eaten by you. And I can guarantee that with concentrations this high, we  _ would _ burn. Those who dive beneath the water to escape the blast would die in the resulting cave-in. My thumb is on the flint wheel and I don’t have to ignite the butane for everything to go up. Just a tiny spark will do. Do I have your attention?”

It would seem he did. None of them answered or shifted out of their dragon forms, but they didn’t move, either. They were as still as a person got when a gun was pointed at them. Erwin knew that kind of stillness intimately. 

“Good. Now, all of you,” he made a sweeping gesture to the dragons that lay between themselves and the exit. “Move slowly to that side of the catwalk. Sudden movements will get all of us killed.”

Some of the dragons looked back to the ones that had initially called for them to stop. Those were in charge, somehow, and Erwin made a note of it. They snarled unhappily, but moved, grudging and hostile. It set the tone for the rest, who let Erwin hear their anger without making any move to do resist him. They went as slowly as he demanded, their heads ducking carefully beneath the catwalk and coming up on the other side. Erwin watched them closely to make sure he saw every one of them surface, counting them. 

“Holy shit,” Naam breathed. “Holy  _ shit.”  _

Levi remained silent, holding almost as still as the other dragons had been. It seemed he possessed instincts for self-preservation that went deeper than his training for the ring because all that aggression and fury was not setting him off. He remained steady beneath Erwin, his breathing rapid, but even. So far, so good. 

“I’m sure that some of you have considered pulling us down from beneath the water. In fact.” He pointed to one of the dragons in particular, using the head of the pick axe in a deliberately threatening gesture. “I can see you still thinking about it. You’re thinking that perhaps you can get beneath us and yank us under before I’ve had a chance to annihilate your entire family. So before we go anywhere, I want to emphasize how little it would take to set all this methane off. The slightest involuntary flinch, like the flinch that would result from being abruptly jerked down … that would be enough.” He allowed a pause for emphasis there, meeting each of the dominant dragons’ eyes so they could read the seriousness in his own. “If you have anyone under the water, I will allow you a single chance to call them to your side of the catwalk.” 

No one moved for several seconds. Perhaps it wasn’t as long as it felt before finally, one of the dominant dragons sank quietly beneath the water. It didn’t go far, hovering just beneath the surface where Erwin could hear some sort of soft, barely audible clicking like the vocalizations that might come from a dolphin or whale. If only these creatures were half as friendly. 

Another long moment passed, then several more heads surfaced to join the crowd on the far side of the catwalk. 

“Is that all?”

The dragons stared hatefully back. 

“Levi, ease carefully over the rail. Make sure we don’t go completely under. Naam, can you swim?”

“Of course I can,” she replied shakily. “Can  _ he?” _

Erwin doubted that Levi had ever been called upon to swim, but he should be very motivated at the moment to learn. “We’re about to find out. Keep all of your legs moving, Levi, like you’re running underwater. Holding your toes as wide as you can will help push your body up.”

Levi’s elliptical pupil was dilated anxiously when it swivelled around to look at Erwin, but he nodded his head, lifting his chin in a clear request. Without once taking his eyes off the assembly of savage dragons, Erwin stood in the saddle and leaned forward, touching his lips to the end of the drake’s nose. “I’m going to kiss you properly in a minute,” he promised, and Levi nudged the underside of Erwin’s chin as he pulled back to regain his seat. “Naam, you go out ahead of us. The minute this lighter is below the water they’ll be on us. 

“Are you sure that’s a true exit and not just another dead end? What if it gets narrower back there and we can’t get through?”

“Then I’ll be glad I just kissed Levi. I only see light this way. All I’m certain of from that direction is another section of mine. Between the two, I’d rather put my life down on the option I see.” 

Naam swallowed, licking her lips with a shuddering inhale. “Okay. Okay, sorry. I’m going.” She reached out for the rail, swinging her legs over and taking a deep breath from the top before pushing off. 

“If I see anyone move, I will not hesitate,” Erwin warned them again. He raised the lighter as high as his arm would go, standing again in the saddle to get that hand as far over the surface of the water as he could manage. For a gut-lurching second it felt like they were about to sink like a stone. They dipped and kept dipping, water rushing eagerly up Erwin’s body as they left the catwalk. It made it almost to Erwin’s chin, even standing, and Levi’s head was fully submerged before he figured himself out and opened his wings, pushing down hard and heaving them up. They lurched back into the water once, but only once. After that, Levi seemed determined to keep his head from going under again. Erwin could imagine the drake’s disgust. 

Naam had almost made it to the opening. She swam like a creature possessed, but Levi’s body was larger and he caught up quickly. 

“Wait a moment, Naam. We don’t know what’s out there. We should all leave together.” 

The dragon laughed shrilly, wild and fearful and disbelieving. “Fuck that!” she cried, and she dove. 

“Shit. Levi, hurry. When you hit the wall don’t stop.”

The dragons behind them hadn’t tried to move and that made Erwin nervous. He had his threats, but ultimately, they should be testing his resolve, seeing if he was all talk or if he really was a risk. But they did nothing. They just remained where they were, waiting.

“Don’t stop once we’re out. They’ll be right behind us.” As they came up on the wall he ducked, taking a deep breath and holding it as he flattened himself to Levi’s back and shut his eyes. 

The minute his hand hit the water, Erwin felt them move. There was a sort of concussion as they all plunged forward together. Those dragons were efficient in the water. They would close the distance between them faster than the blink of an eye, and they did. Erwin felt the first few hit the wall behind them and scrabble, working out which would go first. Then his head was coming up on the other side and it was absolute chaos. Bright sunlight and water half-blinded him and he shook his head, trying to clear his vision and see where all the screaming was coming from. 

It seemed like everything around them was churning. Levi’s wings beat wildly against the water, trying to get them to a shore that Erwin could not see. He saw moving shapes, terrestrial dragons all around them startling into motion and screeching their surprise. They were everywhere when his vision adjusted, abandoning nests of rags and scavenged clothing and foliage to surge after them with a vengeance. Erwin had forgotten what Naam’s dragon form looked like, but he could tell which one was her’s because that was the one just ahead of them, rolling out of the water in a frenzied blur of uncoordinated limbs that were still shifting as she moved. 

Levi hit the bank hard, using his wings to propel them away from the water, though he didn’t stop there. The drake’s chest swelled, his sides warming quickly as his flame bladder filled. He aimed blindly even as he ran, half-turning in place to hit whatever was behind them with an aborted gout of dragon fire. It must have hit something because the screams intensified in their wake, but Levi didn’t stop to assess. He ran like he’d taken off that first day, darting along the ground until he had enough lift to launch them skyward. 

Adrenaline made the drake into something faster than Erwin thought possible. They turned sharply in the air to avoid the knot of dragons that were after Naam, plunging downward again and changing direction abruptly. Erwin realized what he was doing before he felt the first sear of heat blistering the air just above them. He was making them an unpredictable target. There was little Erwin could do with the pick axe pressed between his body and the saddle. There was only Levi and his violent shifts in direction, the brutal plunges downward and the jerking ascents. Erwin had no idea where the ground was at that point. He could only keep his head down and watch the world spin grotesquely around them. More than once, he felt heat and thought,  _ too close, too close,  _ his skin prickling in expectation of agony. 

There was a moment when he looked up and found them farther from the mine than he realized they’d come. In the brief, reeling glimpse he had, he knew immediately where Naam was. Her voice was indistinguishable from the others, but he saw the knot of bodies that had fallen over hers and driven her into the ground. There was nothing of her to see--not in that single glimpse--but there was no mistaking the yank, slash of heads and talons or the way that others were converging upon the same spot. They were already feeding. 

“She’s not coming,” Erwin shouted, trying to make his voice heard over the rush of wind and beat of wings. “They have her. Keep going.” 

Most of the dragons chose to partake in the feeding frenzy that was developing around Naam’s body rather than follow Levi, but there were still a few stubborn pursuers that couldn’t leave off a good chase. The distance between them was widening, though, and they were already too far behind to use their flame bladders. Only then did Erwin become aware of the hard pounding in his ears and the way he could feel every beat of his heart through the walls of his arteries. He turned his head and let it drop, his temple resting against the pommel of Levi’s saddle as he closed his eyes and took a moment to breathe. They were clear. They were still being followed, but there was no chance of being caught. Levi was too fast. 

A flash of something below had Erwin jerking upright, turning in the saddle to make sure he’d just seen what it looked like.

Yes, that was a fence.

It was tall, bricked in on the bottom and chain link the rest of the way up, topped with large coils of barbed wire. He thought he saw a sign posted a little farther down--probably warning that there was a goddamned dragon preserve on the other side. Indeed, their pursuers turned at the fence, peeling off with frustrated howls and heading back. Erwin watched them until his neck was sore. 

“They’re gone.”

Levi banked to one side, turning a little too sharply with the leftover adrenaline still slamming through him. He made a full circle in the air, looking back the way they came. 

“Set us down. We need to dry off.” 

The trees along their left side were thick and would hide them well from searching eyes. If they went far enough in where the canopy was thick, a dragon wouldn’t be able to land without making a sound. That was the best they could do under the circumstances. If they didn’t dry off they were just as dead as any enemy could make them.

Their landing was a little rough, but Erwin could hardly blame Levi for it. Cold was starting to penetrate the adrenaline high and as he slid out of the saddle and a frigid wind hit him, he knew they needed to get that tent up as fast as it would pitch. Levi staggered from beneath the saddle, shoving it over his head and rounding on Erwin as soon as he was fully upright. 

“I think the tent is in the bag I--mmph.”

Levi’s hands were hooked through the neck of Erwin’s collar, his sharp nails prickling the delicate skin of his throat as the drake yanking him forward and down, crushing their mouths together with the fervor of a person on their deathbed.

“Levi--” 

The drake caught his lips again, refusing to let up. His other hand snaked around Erwin’s back, catching on one of the belts and gripping hard. The strength of that grip was evident in the way his fist shook, like he was holding on with every ounce of strength he had left in his body. He dragged them together, his leg working its way around to the other side of Erwin’s thigh as his hips moved. 

“Levi--”

The drake’s first words were not the ones Erwin expected. With a small growl, he allowed their lips to part, but not very far. “I wouldn’t have left you,” he rasped furiously, pressing forward for another kiss. “Not like Naam left Lyda. I wouldn’t have been like she said. It wouldn’t have just been  _ fine  _ like you don’t fucking matter.” He kissed Erwin again, almost bruising in his insistence. “I don’t feel that way. It’s not the same.”

Erwin captured the drake’s face in his hands before he could knock the teeth out of his mouth with another of those half-controlled kisses. “Levi, I  _ know.  _ I know,” he said again, cupping his palms over the dragon’s chilly cheeks. He was turning pink with cold, shivering without seeming aware of it. “You’re not Naam and I’m not Lyda. I never believed anything different.” 

Levi shook his head. It was a small gesture that Erwin felt rather than saw. “You said in there that you’d made your decision. I’ve made mine. I want us to be mated.”

The detective blinked. And blinked again. Of all the things to say to someone following a near death experience, Erwin did not expect what was essentially a marriage proposal. He stood there with his wet clothes stiffening with frost, his fingers bright red and numb and about ready to give up and fall right off his hands. He looked at Levi and Levi looked at him and the cold-sensitive dragon barely seemed to notice that he was freezing to death and that right there convinced Erwin that he meant it. “Alright,” the detective answered softly. “When the adrenaline has worn off we can revisit this. Right now, we need to get out of these clothes before we’re too cold to pitch the tent.”

_ “Yes,” _ the drake purred. “Get me out of my cold, terrible clothes.”

Erwin’s lips twitched. “Behave.” 

Levi rose onto his tiptoes, their bodies shivering together in the cold. “No, I don’t think so,” he murmured into Erwin’s jaw. “Not today.”


	38. Breathe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *WEE TRIGGER WARNING* for mild first-aid activities. 
> 
> Okay. So it's been a while. I'm working to get my shit together and it's going pretty well. I'm still exhausted a lot of the time, but that's been getting better, too. I think. I hope. Anyway, I'm trying to get back on a schedule with these updates. It may not be weekly right away but I'm trying to build back up to it. In four days I will have a puppy to occupy my lap while I do these things. She's actually my parent's puppy but they're going to notice that she disappears a lot. To my lap.

“What is it?”

Erwin paused at the stove where he'd been working on getting their fire started, his hand still resting on the little door. The metal was warming quickly beneath his fingers, though it wasn’t yet a discomfort. “I’m thinking about Naam,” he answered honestly. 

Levi turned to favor him with a long look, one of the saddlebags still in his hands. They were designed to repel moisture, but he’d dumped everything out of them to check the seals on the individual plastic bags for leaks. One of them--the food bag--had been left open, but the foil wrappers made that irrelevant. He’d just upturned the whole thing and spread their meal bars over the bottom of the tent to dry. “Your lips are blue,” the dragon observed. “There is ice in your hair and you're shivering yourself to exhaustion.”

Erwin glanced down at himself, finding his body in quite an alarming state. “Probably.”

“And you’re sitting there brooding about someone there was no way to save.”

Erwin’s numb lips twisted wryly. “I guess I am.”

“Well, hold off until you're warm.” Levi abandoned their bags for the time being and stood. “Do we need anything else from outside? More wood?”

“No, we’ll have enough for tonight.” 

“Good.” Levi dragged the man up by an elbow, nudging the stove door shut with his bare foot. Their frozen boots were still sitting outside, but there wouldn’t be space for them in the tent until their clothing stopped dripping because they’d taken the ash pan from the stove to catch the melting snow from their clothes. It would make the fire harder to tend, but it was that or wake up in a puddle of frigid water. “There's no sense in letting these kill us then, is there?” Levi tugged lightly on Erwin's sleeve, then moved to start getting his own racing leathers unfastened. 

“I suppose there isn't.” 

There were quite a number of things to undo before Erwin was freed. The buckles did not pose any problems, but the laces were stiff and frozen. Considering that his fingers were in a similar state, the whole process took longer than it should have and the promise of warmth made him feel all that much colder. 

“What happened to Naam wasn’t your fault.” Small ice shavings fell like pieces of glitter to the tent floor as Levi's pant laces gave way. He slid out of them and went straight for his top without pausing to pick the discarded leather from the floor. “You kept her alive longer than she would have lasted on her own, but in the end, she wasn’t fast enough and that’s all there was to it. Her death isn’t on you.” 

“I know it wasn’t.” 

Levi watched Erwin work with expectation in his face. “But?” he prompted finally. 

“I’m just wondering who else there is to think about her.” The frozen laces on his pants did come untied, and Erwin was able to separate himself from the lower half of his leathers, peeling them off with a grimace as the liner and underwear clung to the inside and were dragged down along with everything else. “What she said about there being thousands of dragons available to buy … that came from somewhere.”

“You don't think the sister will care.”

“It didn't sound like it to me, but I was hoping I was wrong.”

“I doubt you were.” 

For a long moment, neither of them had anything else to say. Levi made it out of his top and the liner beneath and it was both strange and familiar to see him entirely naked again. He bent to collect his clothing and throw it over the line they'd pulled across the tent, hanging each article as close to the stove as it would go. Finally, he asked, “When we were getting our saddle fitted they mentioned another kind of racing. What is that?”

“The most popular way they race dragons is for speed rather than endurance,” Erwin answered, bemused by the odd question. He was still working on the top half of his leathers, but all the layers were getting twisted up and it was making things difficult. He had no idea how Levi managed to be so quick with his. “The track is short enough that spectators can sit around it. That's all I really know aside from the popularity of betting on the outcomes. Where is this going?”

Levi stepped forward and pushed the detective’s hands away, taking over the task without comment. “If we make it out of here I want to race with you again. I was thinking about how visible this one will make us.”

“If we win here your safety is already assured,” Erwin answered distractedly, his mind caught up on the way Levi's fingers moved, efficient despite the stiffness that lingered in them. 

“I'm not talking about my safety. You're going to need to do something about what you've seen out here.” Levi freed Erwin from the top half of his racing leathers, throwing it temporarily over the clothesline to deal with in a moment. “You won't be able to ignore situations like Naam’s, so let me help you do what you can.”

“You don’t have to live for me that way. The whole point of being out here is to give you choices of your own.” 

“It wouldn’t only be for you,” the drake assured him. “I said I wanted to race again because it’s something I also enjoy. I want to keep doing things like this with you, if I can.”

“You like racing for its own sake?” 

Levi shrugged. “It’s a rush. And sharing that experience together is … fun. When we’re not cold hungry and filthy.” 

“So essentially, you stopped having fun at the finish line.” 

“Essentially. But I still like the idea of finishing first. And flying.”

“Hm,” Erwin mused. “It would be a significant change. We would both need a lot of training to get into racing form for a thing like that. It’s a different style of racing completely. I'd likely have to quit the force to make time for it and our income would be uncertain if we're relying solely on prize money. It's something we ought to think on.”

“Well, I know how to hunt,” Levi deadpanned. “At least we won't starve.”

“Stealing cattle from a pasture is not the same thing as hunting,” Erwin laughed. He let Levi pull the last scrap of frigid liner over his head, bending forward as the drake came up onto his tiptoes to reach him. “And if they turn our water off because we can't pay the bills then you won't be able to shower.”

“Shit,” Levi murmured. “We have to be able to shower. I refuse to ever be this filthy again.” He watched Erwin straighten the clothes along the line and visibly resisted making any corrections for all of four seconds before he reached up to change the way the items lay. 

“It all dries the same,” Erwin assured him. 

“Maybe, but it's ugly to look at in the meantime.” Levi did the job quickly, though, eager to sink down huddle his shivering body around the stove.  _ Right  _ around it. Erwin's eyes lingered on the direct contact that was happening there between Levi and the blistering metal. The fire in its belly was already putting out enough heat that the air around the stove shimmered, but Levi did not seem concerned. On the contrary, he closed his eyes with a low sigh, his shivers intensifying like he meant to throw off the rest of the cold. 

Erwin kneeled to reach a single arm out of the tent to scoop snow with their cook pot. Levi wrinkled his nose. 

“What do you want that vile shit in here for?”

“You won't be calling it vile once I've warmed it up and used it to sponge us off.”

Levi, who had been working out whether or not he wanted to curl the tops or the bottoms of his toes against the stove, stopped to look at Erwin with such utter awe that the detective had to laugh. He pulled a sleeping bag over to sit with Levi and warm up, setting the snow over the top to melt. 

“You're the best human, do you know that?” Levi murmured, languid with the heat he was absorbing. “Smart, excellent human.” He let his head drop forward to rest on the stovepipe, which would have burned Erwin’s face right off had he tried the same, tempting as that heat was. 

“Where did you put the toiletries?” He asked instead, eyeballing the perfectly even rows of waterproof plastic bags that Levi had left out. The drake turned and pointed without hesitation to the correct one, returning his arm quickly to the stove. 

Erwin leaned sideways for the bag, feeling his weary muscles stretch around the bones beneath them in ways that weren't entirely pleasant. With the cold and the adrenaline wearing off, he was beginning to experience the extent of his exhaustion. He supposed he should have been glad there was room for it, but all he felt was battered. 

Something about Erwin's actions had Levi's eyes flickering over to him and lingering, his faint scowl expressing concern. The drake had probably started out with the intention of tallying the man’s injuries and making sure he was as whole as he appeared, but it didn't end that way. For starters, Erwin was certain that his cock did not bear any of the nasty bruising that covered the rest of him, nor was there any medical reason to be looking at it that long. There was a peculiar vulnerability to the position he’d put himself in, stretched before the drake like he meant to display his body for appraisal. And Levi did appraise, his eyes burning hotter than their cook stove. 

“Erwin. As soon as you don't smell like a fresh asshole--”

“Likewise.” Erwin dragged the toiletry bag closer and moved to sit up. He was going to add something else, but he faltered, the words coming out in a startled grunt. 

“What is it?” Levi demanded sharply. 

“No, it's okay, stay put,” Erwin groaned, waving the drake back into place. “I'm just tender in a few places.”

The drake settled reluctantly, though he eyed Erwin like he wasn't sure he wanted to believe him. “What hurts?”

“Everything,” Erwin snorted. “But I bruised my back when one of those water dragons fly tackled me. I think it was part of the camp stove I landed on, actually. How’s the water look?”

Levi leaned over to scowl into the pot. “It could come off.” He moved it from the burner to the drip pan without waiting for a reply, but Erwin would have told him to do the same thing, so he just handed the drake a cloth so he could begin.

“There's this, too.” Erwin spread toothpaste over his brush and held it in his mouth so he could reach back into the bag for the small bottle of liquid travel soap, leaving it on the drake's knee because he was too busy sighing blissfully into the hot cloth over his face to notice Erwin handing things to him. 

“Mm,” Levi answered happily. He moved to clean his face first--something he did twice before moving on. By then, Erwin had finished with his teeth and leaned out of the tent to spit into the snow, freeing his hands to help Levi rinse soap from his hair without getting any on the tent itself. 

They went through three additional pots of water before both of them were satisfactorily clean, but neither of them felt that the time had been wasted. Erwin felt like a new man as he sat drying by the hot stove, waiting for more water to boil for their canteens. 

“It's convenient having it right outside, I guess,” Levi sighed, his face tucked once more against the stovepipe. “But I still hate it while it's snow.”

Erwin snorted. “You haven't warmed up yet? I can see steam rising off you.”

The drake leaned back, pulling away from the metal. “Am I taking all the heat?” He asked, looking over his body for the steam Erwin promised. When his eyes rose, there was a glint of something in them that the detective felt it important to pay attention to. Levi edged closer to Erwin, his expression keen. “I'm sure it transfers.” He reached out, pressing his palm to one of the bruises on Erwin's chest, and it  _ did _ transfer. 

“Oh,” the man breathed, his inhale coming out as a hiss when the pain receded. It was temporary, lasting only until Levi's hand moved elsewhere, but the sensation was intriguing. “That’s nice.”

“I think you’re more fucked up than I am,” Levi observed, shifting around behind Erwin and letting his hands pass over the man’s aching shoulders. “You’re like a giant bruise.”

“I can’t disagree.” Levi’s pale skin would have shown every single bump and nick he had on him. Next to Erwin, he looked practically unscathed. It was obvious when he found the worst of it because he froze, his hands going still on Erwin’s shoulders. 

“What the fuck--”

“The camp stove.”

“You made this sound minor.”

“It probably looks worse than it feels.” 

“It’s an  _ open cut.  _ You dove into cannibal dragon shit water with your body hanging wide open.” 

“What?” Erwin tried to turn and look at it himself, but it only worsened the pain. “It didn’t feel like the skin broke. Nothing pulled when I took my liner off.”

“Get on your stomach. We need to treat this.” Levi moved away, taking his delicious, inhuman warmth with him. 

“Does it look bad enough to require antibiotics?” 

“I don’t know. How close to the Arctic Circle are we?” Levi asked, going through their first aid kit to collect the items they would need. Erwin saw him choose gauze, iodine, medical tape, and a pair of small scissors, but he hesitated over the suturing supplies and that made Erwin a little nervous. Not about the sutures--they’d brought a medical adhesive that worked like super glue so Levi shouldn’t have to try learning how to put in proper stitches with an instructor who couldn’t see what he was doing. What made Erwin anxious was the possibility of needing such a thing at all. A cut that bad was definitely an infection risk.

“Go ahead and get the antibiotics,” the detective said. “If you’re looking that long at the glue then I probably need some of that, too.” 

“How do I use it?” Levi asked. They hadn’t gotten that far in their first aid training, but Erwin figured a practical application was as good as any. He laid himself carefully over one of the sleeping bags, turning his head to one side so he could watch Levi.

“Once the cut is clean, just pull the skin carefully together and hold it for a minute. You’ll be able to tell when the glue has cured. Is it a clean slice?” 

Levi glanced over at the injury. “Kind of. There’s a wad of skin at one end where it was pushed in front of the stove or whatever. Do you want me to trim it?” 

“Only the excess if there’s a lot sticking straight up. Otherwise, it’s best to leave it alone. How large is it?” 

“Not huge.” Levi held up his fingers to indicate about an inch. “It’s just gaping a little.” 

“Does it look very deep?”

“I don’t think so.” 

“It’s a good candidate for glue, then. I’d go ahead and do it rather than try and get it to stop on its own. Clean your hands, first.” 

“Obviously,” Levi muttered, turning a small bottle of rubbing alcohol over a gauze pad and running it over his fingers and hands. He used a second dab of alcohol to lift blood from the area surrounding the cut, but he switched to iodine when he neared the injury itself. Erwin could feel him using an eyedropper to apply the liquid, going quickly but carefully in just the way Erwin taught him. 

“Should I add the ointment?”

“Glue first.” 

“Shit.” Levi uncapped the tube before he even lay fingers on Erwin, leaving it resting on the detective’s back for easy access, then Erwin felt him starting to work the edges of the cuts together. “Just stop when the sides are touching?” 

“If you want to pull them a little closer than that, it’s fine. It won’t make a pretty scar, but I’d rather that than have it come partly undone.” 

“A little more, then.” 

Erwin tried not to grimace as the sore skin moved. The developing bruise beneath the laceration was not responding kindly to Levi’s pressing, but there was little else to do about it but grit his teeth and wait for the glue to cure. 

“It won’t be long,” Levi assured him, bending to kiss a clenched jaw while he held the cut closed. Erwin must have looked pretty unhappy to warrant such reassurances. “Almost.” 

“I see a few places you could use that ointment yourself. And a couple of bandages wouldn’t be amiss.” 

“In a minute.” Levi checked the hold on the glue, lifting his fingers slowly to see if it held. He must have been satisfied with what he saw because he capped the adhesive and drew a brief line of over the counter antibiotic ointment from the tube before capping that as well and moving to cover him with gauze. 

“Well done,” Erwin noted, watching him cut small strips of medical tape for the edges of the bandage. 

“You couldn’t even see what I was doing.” 

“No, but it felt like you did a great job.” Erwin lay where he was and watched Levi pack their items back into the first aid kit, tucking everything back into its proper place except for the ointment, which he dapped over a few cuts of his own and finished off with bandages to keep it from rubbing away. 

“I look ridiculous.” 

“You look well-tended,” Erwin disagreed, rolling reluctantly onto his side to take the pill bottle he was given. He studied it while Levi went to retrieve the canteens, finding that this was one of the five-day courses rather than the ten. Hanji tended not to take the antibiotics they were prescribed when they went to see the doctor for a cold or flu, claiming after every visit that viruses did not respond to antibiotics and therefore it was irresponsible for doctors to prescribe such things when it was clearly contributing to resistant strains of bacteria. Still, they filled every single bottle they were prescribed, stocking up for god only knew what. Erwin couldn’t argue with the results since it was saving them from trying to figure out how to properly dose the fish medications they’d brought as backup. That had been Hanji’s idea too. 

“Is that the right bottle?” 

“Yeah, this is a five-day.” Erwin ripped a corner of the label off to better identify it as the one he was using, then took a canteen from Levi. “Thank you.” 

“No problem,” the drake answered. He took the other canteen over to the stove where the water had been boiling for several minutes and urgently needed tending to. Without fear of burning, he gently tipped the water into its new home, using the pouring spout to prevent spills. Erwin silently passed him the second bottle when he capped the first and he poured the rest.

“This one isn’t completely filled.” 

“That’s fine. We can boil more later if we need it, and we ought to rinse the canteens with a little boiling water anyway before we leave to keep them clean rather than continuing to top them off.”

Levi nodded, tightening the cap on the second canteen and setting it aside. “Agreed. I’m sure as hell not sticking my arm out there right now, though. I’m still not completely warm.” 

“Come here, then.” Erwin unzipped the sleeping bag and slid painfully into it. He lifted the corner for Levi to join him if he wanted and he did. There was no hesitation. The drake still held some heat from the stove and it warmed the chilly fabric rapidly as his body settled into Erwin’s, his lips finding the detective’s collarbone and working over it with a determination that had the power to curl toes. 

“You don’t appear to have changed your mind.” 

“No, but I’m still not clear on how sex works,” the drake answered bluntly. “Which of us should do what?” 

Erwin turned his head to smile into the drake’s hair. “We don’t have to jump right to intercourse. Considering the situation and your history I’d rather take our time, anyway. That process can be a delight of its own.” 

Levi leaned back to look skeptically into the man’s face like he was unable to imagine anything but frustration in a slow progression. “I felt you smiling.” 

“Should I caress you more stoically, then? Or I could try scowling, if you’d like.” Erwin affected a truly troubled expression. It wasn’t much different from the way Levi himself looked most of the time, but that was fairly natural for him. Erwin reached up and rubbed his finger between the dragon’s brows. “I’m looking forward to showing you how enjoyable it can be to explore a person. And to be explored.” Erwin slid his knee beneath Levi, encouraging him into a position that would not feel instinctively restrictive or domineering. He wasn’t fully atop Erwin. One side of him weighed heavily over the detective, the heat between his legs resting along the top of Erwin’s thigh. He gave an experimental wiggle and settled, his eyes bright with interest.

“Caress me however the fuck you want, just caress  _ something,” _ the drake breathed, dipping his head eagerly when Erwin pulled him down for a kiss. He nipped a little too hard in his enthusiasm, but it wasn’t enough to draw blood and the sound Erwin made did something interesting to Levi’s cock even as he panted, “Sorry,” and lapped over the spot with the tip of his tongue. “Sorry, sorry.” Then, he redirected his attention towards Erwin’s top lip and went to work there like he was starving.

The detective allowed his hands to wander, careful not to let them express too much interest in Levi’s scarring. He was already making plans for those. In the morning, perhaps, a demonstration was in order. For the time being, he didn’t want to drop a bucket of ice water over Levi’s growing confidence, but it was also important that they get rid of that insidious little voice in Levi’s head that told him that the scars made him insufficient for courtship. That voice had to be evicted. Everywhere else, the drake seemed to be doing well. He moved less hesitantly as he learned by inches that there wasn’t a particularly correct thing to do with one’s hands for the purpose of exploring. Touch for its own sake, for the pleasure of it, was the only objective there. And he relaxed. That was still, perhaps, the most amazing thing to Erwin--to feel Levi turn soft in his arms and relinquish a little more wariness, a little more uncertainty. He tipped his head back and let his lips part, offering his mouth to see what Levi would do with it.

This, at least, was familiar territory, and the drake flicked the tip of his tongue against the inside of Erwin’s lip like a guest waiting to be greeted and invited in. He met Erwin politely, his hand stilling on Erwin’s chest where he’d been admiring the man’s rippled abdominal muscles with his fingertips. He’d been there for a while, seemingly fascinated by the deep furrows he’d found, but evidently he was throwing all of his concentration into the kiss, momentarily abandoning the rest of his body where it lie. 

“Breathe,” Erwin reminded him fondly, barely able to do more than card a hand through Levi’s hair himself. The drake was an exacting kisser, demanding most of Erwin’s attention there as well. He nudged his chin up, taking his tongue back gently, and the other hand rose to the drake’s head, eliciting a low sigh. “Where can I touch you?” 

Levi gave him an odd look. “Anywhere. Touch my spleen if you want to.” 

A small laugh startled from Erwin. “We ought to leave your spleen alone, I think. I was thinking about your exterior.” 

“I said  _ anywhere,” _ Levi assured him, pressing his hips into Erwin’s thigh so he could feel the heat there. Or perhaps the hardness. Either way, the detective got the message. Anywhere. He pressed his lips to Levi’s throat and drew a little suction. 

“Fuck.”

“Touch me first when you’re ready,” Erwin instructed him. “Get yourself comfortable with the idea. There’s no rush.” 

“Speak for yourself,” the drake grumbled, but he didn’t immediately reach for Erwin. He lingered first over his abdomen, lowering his head to a nipple and mouthing it thoughtfully as his fingers dipped one at a time into the man’s navel. Thoughtful or not, Erwin’s cock took a keen interest in the action, his back starting to arch before he let it drop with a startled wince. 

“Did that hurt?” 

“No, I forgot my back. What you’re doing is perfect.”  

“Good.” Levi scraped his front teeth over the nipple in his mouth, seeming to revel in the faint approving sound that Erwin made. After a moment, though, he paused. “You didn’t tear the glue.”

“No, it wasn’t that bad.”

Levi’s relief came out as a small huff of breath. “Maybe it  _ is _ a good idea to hold off on the strenuous stuff, then.”

“It is. You’ll be glad for that decision for your own reasons, as well.” Erwin pulled the drake back down for a quick peck on the nose, which successfully threw enough levity into the conversation to safely add, “This isn’t for breeding. It isn’t a means to an end. Partners treat sex a lot differently than scientists do, but I think you’re already coming to understand some of that.” He glanced down at Levi’s fingers, which were still toying with Erwin’s navel. 

“I trust you,” Levi said after a moment. “If there’s something more, then I want you to show me all of it.” 

“Of course.” 

Levi nodded, returning to Erwin’s nipple for one last lick before he left the man’s navel alone and ventured lower. He was far enough into the sleeping bag that there was no way to see what Levi was doing, but Erwin certainly felt it--perhaps more so in his blindness. The drake’s fingers were slow with unfamiliarity, curling around the base of Erwin’s cock and tightening as Levi watched his face for cues. The heat he’d borrowed from the stove was definitely waning as his body absorbed it, but there it still felt incredible and Erwin had to remind his back not to bend, his toes curling as he fidgeted. Levi must have liked what he saw because he continued upwards, leaving a stripe of heat and pressure all the way up to the damp head, his eyebrows lifting when he found Erwin in such a state.

“Already?”

“I can’t deny it, can I?” His voice sounded strange, deeper, and Levi took obvious delight in that as he leaned up to suck on the detective’s adam’s apple. 

“I’d better not leave you waiting around then,” he observed, and Erwin did not mention that he personally had no problem being teased to the brink of sanity by a mischievous partner. It was something that would undoubtedly show itself in time. 

“Hook your leg over mine,” Erwin instructed, turning sideways so their bodies aligned front-to-front. The drake did as suggested and Erwin adjusted to compensate, pulling up a few inches to give their cocks a proper introduction. They weren’t quite touching, just hovering in the same general vicinity, and a brilliant shudder passed through Levi as he realized it. 

“Holy shit,” he rasped, and he used that leg to join them.

“Mm.” Erwin figured that qualified as comfortable and he set his hands free to roam, smoothing them over Levi’s hips where they pressed in to meet Erwin’s in search of friction and heat. The drake moaned softly, muscles quivering along the swell of his ass like they responded to Erwin’s touch, awakening beneath his fingers. Erwin found himself on his back again quite suddenly, tipped off balance by the insistent press of Levi’s leg and chest. The drake rolled with him, surprised as Erwin was to find himself straddling the detective’s hips. He stared down at the man, eyes wide and dilated with arousal, his hands resting on Erwin’s chest as he leaned forward for balance. 

“What can I--” Levi trailed off, realizing that their cocks were nudged up together along Erwin’s pelvis, so full they leaked. He stared in fascination until Erwin figured he wasn’t going to finish his sentence and reached down, taking them both in hand. 

“You can touch everything,” Erwin offered. “Except my spleen.” 

Levi’s laugh was choked on a gasp that came out when the man’s fingers tightened on them both, aligning their weeping cocks and stroking them together. “Fuck, what are you doing?” He put a little more weight on his knees, giving him a little more leverage to thrust along Erwin, who timed his own hips so the two of them moved in opposite directions. That time, Levi’s gasp came out almost like a small cry, his movements speeding fractionally. 

“Kiss me,” Erwin suggested roughly. His free hand moved, ceasing it’s slow stroking to work fingers into the back of Levi’s hair. He pulled the drake down, but he barely had to. Levi’s mouth was hot and ravening over his own, abandoning all efforts at finesse in exchange for a sort of frantic exploration, like he intended to taste every part of Erwin before a bomb’s timer hit zero. Maybe that was exactly what he was doing, because in an instant he convulsed, his lips going still and parting around a hoarse cry. It sounded like surprise to Erwin, like he hadn’t realized how close he’d been, his body shaking as he spilled himself again and again over the detective’s cock. 

That, more than anything else, threw Erwin right over the edge himself. His head tipped eyes slamming shut as--glue be damned--his back came of the sleeping bag. It had been long enough that it seemed to tear through him, wringing everything out of him, and when it passed he lay there for a long moment with Levi sprawled over the top of him, breathing just as heavily. 

“I didn’t expect that to happen,” the drake offered by way of apology. 

“I didn’t either.”

“We could have been doing this for so long,” the drake grouched. 

“Survive, and we’ll have plenty of time, still,” Erwin assured him. 

“That’s the thinking I used in the mine.” Levi sat up reluctantly, his muscles still quivering and uncooperative. But cleanliness beckoned, and he dragged himself over to the clothesline to retrieve one of their washcloths. “I told myself that if we got out and you still wanted me that I’d claim you.” 

“And now?” Erwin asked, his eyes following Levi’s hands as he wiped himself up and folded the cloth so he could kneel and do the same for Erwin. “Have I been claimed?” 

“Almost.” One corner of Levi’s mouth twitched up. “I have to come inside of you. Then you’re mine.” 

“How does it work with two males?”

“If you were a dragon, you would have to come inside of me as well. I think it changes the way your pheromones smell to other dragons. Technically, as a human, it doesn’t matter. I’m surprised you haven’t already read this stuff.”

“I have.” Erwin took the cloth from Levi when they’d finished, tossing it sideways into the drip pan so the drake wouldn’t get up again. Surprisingly, the only protest he received for it was a brief glower. “I just wanted to hear you say that you had plans to come inside me.” 

“Pervy old man,” Levi snorted, returning to the sleeping bag without trying to go and hang up the cloth. Mission accomplished. “Technically, you don’t have to ensure that your pheromones change, but I’d like to complete the process anyway. It wouldn’t feel quite … right … otherwise.” He turned away from Erwin to work the zipper back up towards his neck, but Erwin used it as an opportunity to pull his knees up behind the drake, his arm folding around his belly. 

“Levi, in a sexual relationship I find that I enjoy it just about any way it goes. You’re welcome inside of me, and if you want me inside of you as well, then I’d be happy to be there.” He put his nose to the back of the drake’s head, marveling at its cleanliness. He’d thought it would take more than a sponge bath to wash the filth of the mine from them, but so far it had done pretty well. 

“Are you sniffing me?” 

“Yes.” 

“What do you smell?”

“Soap and Levi. I can’t detect your pheromones, but you do have a distinctive smell that isn’t soap. It isn’t a dirty smell, before you ask. I like it.” 

“Hm.” Levi paused for a moment, mulling that over, and there was amusement in his voice when he answered. “Good.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope the sexy was sufficient. I have a throat infection right now and I just went to get some penicillin and a steroid shot in my ass SO I'm not feeling at all sexy and I can't tell if it's just me or if the actual sexy wasn't sexy. If it wasn't sexy then don't worry because there will be more sexy.


	39. Vermin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erwin's plans for a quiet morning are ruined by at least twelve more problems.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like I'm going to regret posting this chapter but at some point enough is enough. I can't tell you how much I have stared and edited and put the doc in the trash and taken it back out of the trash and stared at it some more. It's getting ridiculous please take it away from me. I almost just deleted it out of the AO3 editor.

Erwin had different plans for the morning. He’d have awoken on his own after a rare and hard earned lie in, his body tangled comfortably around Levi’s. Cocooned in the insulated sleeping bag, the drake put out heat like a furnace. Erwin would have pressed him flat to the soft material while they were both still sleep-warm and aroused, covering every inch of him with his mouth and hands. Instead, it was Levi’s hands on him, shaking him urgently awake.

“Erwin. Get up.”

That tone was more effective than any alarm clock. Levi was already moving away, throwing off his gloves to yank the front of the tent shut.

“What’s wrong?” Erwin asked, sitting up and taking the situation in. Levi was fully dressed right down to his boots, snow-dusted and shivering in the chilly air. It wasn’t just the draft that had come in with Levi. The stove wasn’t generating much heat and their stack of wood had dwindled to nothing but flecks of bark on the tent floor. That explained Levi’s absence, but …

“There’s something in the snow. Something fucking _bit_ me.”

“Bit you?” Erwin shoved the sleeping bag from his legs and crawled over to where Levi was unlacing his racing leathers as quickly as he could. The detective was still vaguely foggy with sleep in spite of the way his pulse quickened and he blinked blearily against it. “Where--”

“Here.” Levi caught the liner with the leathers and pushed both of them down his legs, revealing several small puncture wounds just below his knee where his shin had not been protected by the boot. “The snow was deep. I looked down and didn’t see anything, so I tried to take my dragon form.” He shook his head like it needed clearing, his eyes bewildered.

“You couldn’t shift?” Erwin guessed. Levi opened his mouth, but he didn’t have to answer. The expression on his face said enough. “How do you feel otherwise?” Erwin bent to peer more closely at the bite, but it didn’t tell him much except the offending jaw had been small and the teeth placed closely together.

“Shitty.” But he caught Erwin’s eye and sighed. “Sick, weak. Dizzy.” His frown deepened as he considered his physical state, his lips parting. “It feels like I’ve been drugged, but it doesn’t hurt too bad unless I try to transform.”

“Which you’ve done more than once?”

Levi nodded. “It was the same each time. Sickness and pain.”

Erwin took hold of Levi just above the knee and squeezed lightly. “Give yourself a minute. Whatever is out there, it isn’t large enough to attack us through the tent.”

Levi sucked in a deep breath and nodded, falling back onto the sleeping bag without trying first to knock the snow from his coat.

“I’m going to clean this. There’s no telling what’s in the saliva.”

“Ugh.” Levi threw an arm over his eyes, bending his knee so Erwin could easily access the strange little punctures. “That’s filthy.” Their first-aid kit was still readily available from the previous night’s efforts and Erwin’s hands worked on automatic, his mind elsewhere.

Mike and Hanji had provided them with a brief education on the local wildlife, though it had centered mostly on the edible ones and the ones that could make something edible of them. They’d been warned away from moose, which were surprisingly foul-tempered, and grizzly bears, which were less surprisingly so. They’d been told that leeches were very cold-tolerant and which horrifying bloodborne diseases they carried. There hadn’t been anything about an animal that could trap a dragon in their human form. Erwin hadn’t been aware that such a thing even existed. One of their friends would have mentioned it they’d known, and something that _Hanji_ didn’t know was … admittedly unnerving.

“I wonder where transformatives come from,” the detective wondered suddenly. “The pharmaceutical company references natural sources, but I didn’t dig into it. I was mostly looking up information on negative reactions.”

Levi looked down at the gauze bandage Erwin was taping together. “This is milder than the other shit was, but … it’s kind of similar.”

Erwin tugged up on the dragon’s liner, settling the fabric back in place when Levi lifted his hips to accommodate.

“The bite looks like something you’d get from a rodent, but I don’t know of anything in nature that has a venom or saliva like this.” Of course, that didn’t mean there wasn’t such a beast. Erwin hadn’t known what a capybara was, either, until quite recently. He moved over to their bags and started repacking them more or less the way he remembered. “Rest for now. We need to leave this area as soon as possible, but you have a few minutes while I get our things together.”

Levi nodded--a minute movement that spoke to how ill he felt--and closed his eyes. Erwin worked as quietly as possible, standing to fetch his leathers from the line and dig a fresh set of underthings from his belongings. But the drake wasn’t sleeping anyway. His breathing was slow and even, but not quite deep enough to indicate that he was dozing off. It sounded more like the deliberate breaths of a person trying to will away nausea or pain. When the detective settled down again by the sleeping bag, Levi cracked an eye open.

“Done?”

“Almost.” Erwin pulled his boots on slowly, noting that they’d been inside the tent long enough to completely dry. “When did you bring these in?”

“I was up early tending the fire. I came back to bed after.”

Ordinarily, Erwin was a fairly light sleeper. He must have been exhausted for none of that to register. “Then you went back out again for wood?”

“You looked like you needed the rest so I left you alone.”

“I must have if I was that out of it.”

One corner of Levi’s mouth twitched like he wanted to smile, but there was too much tension in the rest of his face. He sat up carefully, then rolled off of the sleeping bag to arrange it into a manageable bundle.

“I’ll go out first, then you can pass me the stove,” Erwin told him. “It seems to me that whatever these creatures have in their saliva is specifically intended for dragons, so I should be unaffected if one of them does bite me.”

“We don’t know what else is in it.”

“No, but we need to make sure you aren’t bitten again so the toxin can wear off. We’ll be in sorry shape if we can’t fly out of here.” Erwin unzipped their tent and pushed the flap aside to look out, but there was nothing unusual about their campsite. A fresh layer of snow had fallen during the night and apart from Levi’s footprints, it was pristine.

“Be careful,” the drake muttered. “They’re under the snow. I didn’t see anything before I was bitten.”

“They may use burrows, then, like lemmings,” Erwin mused, ducking out into the frigid morning and immediately sinking into ankle-deep powder. “It makes sense. This far north, there aren’t many other ways to escape the cold.” He turned to take the stove from Levi so he could empty the ashes before kneeling to break it down for transport.

“What in hell is a lemming?” Levi followed cautiously, emerging with an even greater dislike for the weather than Erwin thought possible.

“It’s an arctic rodent, but I never heard of them having any natural defense against dragons. It doesn’t seem like they’d need it anyway without any wild dragons to defend against.”

“If they’re defending against dragons does that mean we aren’t far enough from the mine yet?”

Erwin shook his head. “I can’t tell you. I thought the fence we passed over was the perimeter, but it may not be--yet another reason to leave as quickly as we can.” He turned his wrist to look at the map on their beacon. “It’s still red where we are, but I can see the edge ahead. We should be able to make it on foot before nightfall.”

“So it’s either still red because we aren’t out of dragon territory or because the snow vermin is dangerous on its own,” Levi rehashed skeptically. “But so dangerous that a rescue team isn’t willing to risk coming in here? They’re just rats. I don’t buy it. There’s something else here.”

“There could be. I assumed last night that the red was just some overflow bleeding across from the mine. That could still be the case, but I won’t rely on it.”

They finished breaking camp as quickly as they were able, packing the tent away and lifting the saddle between them. Levi had their pickaxe in his other hand, glaring around them at the glistening snow like they were trudging through raw sewage. They had a long way to go and between the snow and Levi's dizziness their progress was slow, but Erwin was still optimistic that they wouldn't have to pitch their tent in a red area again that night.

“What did it feel like last time when the transformative was wearing off?” Erwin asked after awhile. “Could you feel it happening or did you just try to transform and realize that you could?”

“I'm not sure,” Levi answered. “I slept through most of it, but I think I'll know when it wears off. I feel too shitty not to notice when it gets better. You think it will get better, don't you? It shouldn't be permanent?”

“I doubt it. If this venom or saliva or whatever it is forms the basis of transformative drugs, I’d expect it to be similar. Once your body finishes metabolizing it you should be okay.”

Levi nodded grimly, setting his mouth into a fine, determined line. Carrying the saddle between them helped. Erwin could tell that the drake wasn't entirely steady on his feet, but hanging onto something kept him moving in a straight line even as he staggered. He didn't voice a single complaint about it, though his face was pinched and unhappy.

“I regret nixing the snowshoes,” Erwin admitted after a while. They had ice cleats in their bags but those wouldn't have done anything for them in deep snow, only given their feet a little more weight to sink with. They were forced by necessity to take the winding path between gaps in the trees, picking their way over harder patches of ground where the sun-melted snow had frozen and refrozen into harder-packed ice. It didn't always hold their weight, but it was better than slogging through fresh powder. “It seems like we planned for everything except extensive hiking.”

“There was no way to have known,” Levi told him. “The point was to hunker our asses down if conditions were too bad to fly. Who expects biting snow rats?”

“Not us,” Erwin sighed. “They may farm them here, whatever they are. That could be why the fence is there.”

“It’s right outside the mine. This is the first bit of real cover you’d find after escaping from there. Survivors are most likely to set down somewhere in this area out of sheer exhaustion. It’s what we did.”

“That would imply that the officials know about the wild dragons. Legally, it would have to be a designated preserve in that case. I can’t think of any other way around it.”

“Can they do that?” Levi asked. “Intentionally run us through a known dragon preserve?”

“I’ve been thinking on that same question,” Erwin answered slowly. “I don’t know how Canadian laws address these things, but if they are anything like ours then the property owner is not held responsible for incidents that occur on a dragon preserve so long as the perimeter was clearly indicated and the injured party chose to ignore those warnings. If the mine is a preserve, then the bodies outside the entrance probably serve as more than simply a scare tactic. Their presence would also satisfy the race official’s legal obligation to disclose the danger of entering without explicitly revealing to us the nature of our obstacle.” The more they discussed it, the more certain Erwin became that their speculations weren’t far from the truth. The pieces fit together too well.

Levi didn’t answer immediately, his breaths coming hard in the silence. “That’s really fucking twisted.”

 

*

 

Erwin did not ask if Levi wanted a break. He stopped them without making a choice out of it, knowing the drake would push himself beyond his body’s limits if given the option. He called it a late breakfast. They hadn’t eaten in their rush to leave and Levi’s morning had started much earlier than Erwin’s.

“We should keep going,” the drake said, but his protest lacked quite a bit of resolve. Erwin ignored it and another was not forthcoming.

“Stay close to the base of this tree,” the man replied instead. “I doubt we’ll find burrows where there are lots of large roots.” He didn’t know that for sure. The creatures could _prefer_ root-burrows for all he knew. He’d been imagining large networks of tunnels like the kind prairie dogs made, but his imagination wasn’t based in anything substantial. It was a guess, and not an educated one at that. They hadn’t even seen anything on their hike to indicate what kind of animal they were dealing with.

Levi dropped his bag into the snow and slid down the nearest trunk with a sigh.

“The good news is, I think we’re closer to the arctic than to the starting line. I won’t know until I pull out our map, but based on what I remember last, we could make it in just a handful of days. Then it will only get warmer from there.”

“I don’t remember what it’s like to be warm,” Levi told him gravely. “My toes stopped warming up on our second night and they’ve been little ice nuggets since.”

Erwin’s eyebrows rose. “You didn’t mention that. Can you still feel them?”

“Yeah, unfortunately,” the drake grumbled. “It isn’t frostbite, they’re just chilly all the damn time.” He took the meal bar that Erwin handed him with a scowl. “We need to eat real food again soon. As soon as I can fly.”

“I won’t argue.” He paused thoughtfully, looking around them at the pristine snow. “Though we may not have to wait that long.”

Levi followed Erwin’s gaze outwards, where technically there was nothing to see, but there was only one thing out there to contemplate eating. “The snow rats?”

“They probably aren’t rats, just rodents. People eat squirrels all the time. And lemmings are a staple food source for animals living in the arctic.”

For a moment, Erwin thought the drake would object, but then his scowl deepened and he said, “They did bite me first.”

“That’s the spirit.”

“What are we going to do, then? Wait until I can shift and then torch everything around me until I get lucky and find some charred bodies?”

“I was going to suggest we see what we’re dealing with and see if it’s something we could feasibly hunt, but if you’re still feeling upset about the bite we could do it that way.”

Levi was silent for a moment. “Hunting is fine.”

Erwin couldn’t help but feel a little more optimistic about their predicament with the possibility of real sustenance coming out of it. He ate his meal bar with unusual gusto, thinking that he never wanted to put anything remotely similar in his mouth again. He went over what Mike had taught him about hunting small game, looking around with fresh eyes at what they had to work with.

“If you were to put your ear close to the snow do you think you could hear them moving beneath?”

Levi gave him an odd look. “Maybe. My senses aren’t much better than yours when I’m human shaped, but I could try it.”

“I have an idea, then.”

Through the lowest branches of a pine tree, something moved.

“Levi, stay still,” Erwin murmured, his eyes fixed on the tiny, pointed nose that was tipped upwards into the air. They were beneath the snow just like Levi suggested. Only the rodent’s head was visible at first, but when the creature didn't find what it was looking for, its long body emerged with a cautious hunch. It was dressed in winter colors, its silvery coat blending so well with the snow that if it stopped moving it would almost vanish. Erwin didn't know the names of all the rodents that one could find in a boreal forest, but this one looked like it was related to a weasel or a ferret--something elongated and slinky.

“Do you see something?” Levi asked just as quietly. He didn't lean to follow Erwin's gaze, holding still as the man requested.

“It may be one of the things that bit you.” From the corner of his eye, another twitch of movement preceded a second head. “No, there are two. I see where the first burrow is but I didn’t catch the second one.”

“I see one over your shoulder,” Levi whispered suddenly.

“Did you see where it came up?”

“Yeah.”

“Have you seen how arctic foxes hunt?” Erwin asked, his eyes jumping between the two large weasels as they waddled cautiously through the trees. They stopped every few steps to smell the air like they were looking for something and when they froze Erwin lost them unless he kept his eyes focused on their positions. They blended in like they were part of the landscape.

“I have no idea what that looks like,” Levi answered flatly. “I didn’t know the arctic had foxes.”

“They can hear rodents move beneath the snow, so they position themselves accordingly and they jump onto the underground tunnels. Ideally, the tunnel collapses and the fox gets to eat.”

“Hm,” Levi mused, reaching to free Erwin’s utility knife from the detective’s hip. “Want to test it out now?”

“I don’t see why not. Just don’t let them get over the top of your boots.”

“That isn’t happening twice,” Levi assured him, pushing himself up with the shaky determination of someone who was done being harassed by local wildlife. One of the weasel creatures cried out shrilly when the drake moved, tearing off for its burrow so quickly that it kicked snow. The others followed suit, taking up the cry as they ran, but Levi’s attention was set on the first of their number. The burrow it used was not far, and Levi approached it with his head tipped sideways and a hand extended in a request for stillness. He wasn’t having much luck if the scowl on his face was any indication. The drake crouched down cautiously near the entrance and bent his head close to the snow, listening for a long time.

Erwin knew immediately when he heard what he was listening for because his eyes widened in genuine surprise as he rose to his feet and moved, lunging into the air and bending his knees so they could come down with all the force his body weight could muster. Levi weighed quite a bit more than a fox, and a shrill cry of alarm was the first sign Erwin got that the drake had been successful. He didn’t see the creature itself, though he saw Levi thrust the knife down, overbalancing in his haste and losing his footing in the shifting snow. He lashed out again as the weasel lunged for him, but the blade did not connect and, thinking better of itself, the rodent bolted.

“Were you bitten?” Erwin asked, leaving their bags where they were and high-tailing it to Levi. The drake shook his head and accepted a hand up, dusting snow from his coat and gloves.

“I was able to hear them, but I lost my footing.”

“Just hearing them is an excellent start.”

Levi nodded. “Let’s try the other burrows. I should be able to get the next one.”

The small hunting party moved through the snow to the other two tunnels they’d seen, but Levi sat at each for quite some time without hearing a thing.

“They must have felt the ground collapse,” Erwin mused. “It’s likely they moved deeper into their tunnel system, but we don’t have time to search this whole area. It would be best to continue on and wait for other sightings.”

The drake wasn’t happy about that, but he left the last burrow and moved stiffly to get his bag. Erwin suspected that the hunt had become a bit personal. These creatures had bitten Levi, which was insult enough even if they hadn’t subjected him to an experience that he never believed he’d have again. Wanting to eat them for it was an understandable impulse.

Sometime late in the afternoon the flat gray clouds began shedding snow. Levi huffed miserably and dragged his hood up over the top of his head, yanking the drawstrings taut so that the warm fur liner almost fully encased his face. He pulled his scarf up over the rest, leaving nothing to see except the deep displeasure in his eyes.

Erwin turned his head skyward, squinting against snowflakes as they lit on his skin in bright points of cold. “The deeper this gets, the harder it will be to maneuver.”

“I can go a little faster,” Levi answered, picking up their pace a notch. “If it means getting out of this shithole.”

Erwin started to look back down at the radar on his wrist, but paused, his eye catching on a flash of movement between the trees.

“What?”

“I’m not sure. I thought I saw something.” Erwin peered into the rising wind without much hope of catching another glimpse of whatever it was he’d seen.

“Dinner?”

“It might have been, but I didn’t see where it went.” If there had been anything out there at all. In the falling snow those rodents would be nearly invisible. It would also be easy to imagine movement where there had been none. “I could have been imagining things.”

“Come on then,” Levi urged, tugging on the saddle between them. “It’s getting ridiculous out here.”

The weather did seem to be worsening. It wasn’t quite what Erwin would call a blizzard, but it wasn’t a gentle snowfall either. They could see the world ahead of them, just not particularly well.

“Does that thing work like the GPS in your car?” Levi wondered.

“It seems to,” the man answered, leaning in and tipping his wrist so the drake could see their little dot on the screen. “That’s us, then that over there is one of the barrier lines, so we’re moving in the right direction.”

“So we can move even if we can’t see for shit.”

“Probably,” Erwin agreed. “We might end up zig-zagging a bit but we could keep walking after dark if we had to. It just wouldn’t be ideal and we’d use up what’s left of our flashlight batteries.”

“That seems to be most of the race so far. ‘Not ideal.’”

“We’re due for a good day or two. Perhaps once we’re away from--” he turned his head sharply. Something had definitely moved that time, darting just out ahead of them and to one side. “--Did you see …”

“Yeah. I think it was snow vermin, but it was gone too fast.”

Erwin sighed. “Watch your step. We’re probably near some of their burrow entrances.”

“There isn’t much else to watch,” the drake grumbled.

“We may be grounded, but at least we know we’re still ahead. If Naam flew through several nights just to keep pace with us there shouldn’t be anyone out front. She was pretty fast herself off the starting line.”

“And no one came into the mine while we were there. We’d have definitely heard that elevator.”

“With the way sound carried in there I’m positive you’re right. So we can guess safely that the other pairs are at least two days behind us--probably a bit more. We don’t know what other delays to expect up ahead, but right now we’re okay on time. That’s something.”

Levi nodded, but he stopped abruptly and the saddle slipped from Erwin’s fingers, falling with a muffled thud into the deepening snow. “What in hell? Those little bastards are everywhere. I keep seeing them. Sorry.” He barely waited for Erwin to retrieve his end of the saddle before setting off again, his pace a little quicker. “It’s like they’re taunting us.”

“Or watching us. We don’t know anything about their behaviors. If we attack one of their burrows a second time they might be preparing to defend it.”

Levi glanced up at Erwin, his nose wrinkled. His nose wasn’t actually visible beneath the layers of fabric piled over it, but there was something about the way the skin around his eyes creased. “You’re saying we shouldn’t try, then.”

“It wouldn’t be prudent under these circumstances. A second bite could become a serious problem in this weather. Besides, these creatures aren’t clever enough to understand revenge even if you do manage to catch one.” As he spoke, Erwin saw more than one tiny blur of motion flashing subtly in his periphery. It was a little unnerving to feel that there might be any number of eyes on him, watching with enough intelligence to understand that he and Levi _needed_ watching. Most rodents would scamper away from an attack and hide themselves, lying quietly beneath the snow until the threat passed. These were tracking their attackers instead and perhaps they would continue tracking until Erwin and Levi reached the edge of their tunnel system. That certainly seemed to be their intention.

“Can you tell how far we are from the edge in terms of actual distance?” Levi asked. “I can’t read that thing.”

Erwin had only been estimating himself. He hadn’t started using the beacon for anything except making sure they stayed within their corridor until they started hitting red zones and distance became a lot more important. “I think it’s something like two miles. Maybe a little over.”

Two miles wasn’t far in good conditions. Even in Levi’s state, it wouldn’t have been truly daunting. It would have been a difficult, miserable trip, but not a _daunting_ one. Slogging through fresh snow in the bitter cold with a heavy saddle suspended between them was just enough, however, to earn the word. Two, almost three miles became twenty, thirty. Levi sighed at the news, but that was his only complaint. With his free hand, he reached up and pressed the scarf more firmly to his face. “I need to warm up soon. I can feel my body trying to get slow, especially without a flame bladder to help.” He sounded hesitant, like he knew he was adding yet another complication to a situation that was already terrible, but it couldn’t be helped. Erwin hadn’t quite forgotten about a dragon’s automatic response to unrelenting cold, but it had slipped quietly to the back of his mind when it didn’t come up. Levi’s leathers were made to insulate him as much as possible, but there was still only so much they could do on their own. Up until that point the demands of the race had been keeping Levi warm and active, constant flight generating enough heat to ward off the cold, but they were moving too slowly and Levi was beginning to feel winter the way dragons were always meant to. First he would slow, and then he would falter and then he would sleep, unresponsive, until both of them froze to death. Erwin had to get him back into the tent before then.

“How soon is soon?”

“I don’t know,” Levi answered unhappily. “I’ve never had it happen before, but I’m sure that’s what this is. It’s something I just sort of … feel coming?”

“Hmm …” As someone who didn’t have a lot of ‘natural instinct’ to speak of, Erwin didn’t entirely understand the certainty that Levi described, but he trusted it. “Is it imminent? I don’t want to have to leave you lying unprotected in the snow while I pitch the tent, so I’ll need some advance warning if you can give me any.”

Levi’s eyes were frowny and thoughtful, his brows drawn together with the force of his concentration. “I think we have time, but I don’t know if it’s two mile’s worth. I’ll ignore it as long as I can. I don’t want to be anywhere near these creepy fuckers when I crash.” His pace quickened again almost imperceptibly. Erwin was confident that if any dragon in that race could fight something as powerful and involuntary as hibernation with willpower alone and stand an actual chance in hell of winning, it was Levi. He’d been pushing himself beyond what was possible since the day they met. It was a part of who he was. Erwin looked forward and set his jaw.

All around them, the forest moved with whirling drifts of snow and tiny silver bodies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I genuinely cannot remember if I ever mentioned that dragons hibernate when they encounter extreme cold. It's something I've more or less always had as a 'fact' of this universe, but I realize that I missed a lot of good opportunities to bring it in earlier. These are things that I plan to clean up in the original version of this story. I've been entertaining the idea of taking the universe and changing the actual story quite a lot or at the very least clipping it down into something much less ... meandering. Either way, there are a lot of weird loose dangly bits in this one that need to be tightened up. But it's 1:00am where I am and I'm rambling in a groggy stupor. Good night, good morning, so on. <3


	40. Eat And Be Eaten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erwin and Levi are introduced to the food chain via practical demonstration.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really liked the weasel chapters in my head, but I hated (almost) every second of writing them. I'm sorry if it shows. The good news is, this is the last one and then we can move on to the hanky panky. **WARNING in this chapter for violent weasel murder.** I almost said 'unnecessary weasel death' but I had to amend that because their deaths are actually completely necessary in retrospect. I apologize to all the actual weasels out there. Y'all are adorable and you didn't deserve this.

Erwin had never spared much thought for his position on the food chain. There wasn’t much to consider when one perched so comfortably at the top, safe in the knowledge that being hunted and eaten on the drive to work was not a realistic expectation. If he wanted meat he’d gone to the supermarket and chosen something from the stacks of plastic-wrapped deli trays or brightly labelled freezer bags. He could get five different brands and ten different versions of the exact same thing just by standing there and reaching out his hand. If he wanted ham with peppercorns, he thought a bit wildly, he could go to the deli section and tell them how thinly he wanted it sliced.

Plenty of people had tried and would try killing him. Erwin’s line of work brought him into contact with plenty of violent, messy people, but their motivations had always been human and reasonably complex. He hadn’t ever arrested a person for trying to _eat_ him, for something as basic and impersonal as a need to feel their stomach filled. The mine had been … unnatural … in that respect. Dragons were so far from cannibalistic that in most cases they couldn’t physically stand to approach their own dead, much less try to eat them. They didn’t touch humans, either, as a general rule. Perhaps for most dragons it was unnerving to eat something that looked so much like one of the two shapes they could take. The mine had been deeply horrifying, but it was easy to dismiss it as an anomaly--a pocket of blind insanity in a country that was otherwise (mostly) sensible.

But for the first time in Erwin’s life a wild animal with a wild animal’s brain had looked at him and decided, _yeah, I think I’ll try to eat that._

The first attack had taken place right on the edge of dusk as the light shifted faintly, almost imperceptibly, towards nightfall. They hadn’t directly encountered any of the weasels all day, but they had seen plenty glimpses of them in the lengthening shadows as the snow grew deep and the foul weather tore at their heavy clothing. The small creatures kept pace without interfering, their light bodies moving nimbly over the fresh powder like it was nothing. Neither of them heard anything, but it was Erwin who felt the tug on his heavy boot and looked down to see a flash of tiny, clawed hands on his laces, a small mouth trying to sink teeth into the leather.

“Shit!”

The creature had already moved, realizing that it didn’t have an opening and skittering upwards, climbing his laces in an agile twist of muscle. The little teeth were sharp when they found skin, punching effortlessly through the racing leathers and the liner beneath. Erwin had a moment to appreciate the bright sting of discomfort before he felt the tiny mandible move, working venom into his blood in a side-to-side motion that was about as disgusting as it was painful.

“Erwin!” Levi fell gracelessly into the snow at his feet, reaching out to intercept a second weasel that had taken advantage of the distraction and attached itself to Erwin’s other leg. Levi’s fingers curled cruelly around the rodent’s belly, but he was a few seconds too late. A second set of teeth sank briefly into Erwin’s skin before they were torn free again by an angry drake and a faint, decisive pop of breaking bone concluded that exchange. Erwin slung the other scrabbling weasel into the side of his booted ankle and it stopped fighting him immediately, going limp in his hand.

It hadn’t only been two of them, however. What the weasels lacked in size they made up for in numbers, which became clear to them very quickly as Levi’s harsh grunt of surprise had Erwin turning back sharply to see that the assault wasn’t over yet. They darted nimbly over the seated drake, reaching too much of him too easily. Levi took a bite to the back of the shoulder even as he yanked another from his forearm, a snarl of outraged disgust forcing its way out of him as he broke another spine in his hands. They were on Erwin again, but it didn’t matter. He let them have his knees, reaching for Levi instead and snatching him by the collar of his coat to drag him up. Levi’s feet settled beneath him and he kicked a weasel from his shin, crushing it beneath his heel as it turned to make a second attempt at climbing him. Erwin grabbed another from the drake’s thigh and proceeded to brain it against his boot as he had the first. The next one slipped through his fingers and leaped wildly back into the snow, leaving Erwin to finish the ones on himself while Levi made short work of the one that had attached itself to his hip.

It ended as quickly as it began, a few tiny feet kicking up snow as the dregs of the tiny assault team beelined for the safety of the trees. Levi and Erwin stood there staring at each other in utter disbelief.

“How … many bites?” Erwin managed.

Levi had to think about it for a moment, which didn’t bode well. “Three. I think. Knee, hip, thigh … but I don’t think the others were able to bite through my coat. What about you?”

Erwin shook his head. “Five, maybe. Six? I don’t know.”

They surveyed the five bodies scattered around them. Apart from a few drops of blood in the snow, it was fairly tidy as far as aftermath went. “At least we have something to eat.” Levi’s lips pressed firmly together, his eyes hard with endured pain.

“Is the venom already working?”

The drake made a short, affirmative sound.

“Hurry, then. We need to get as far as we can before the adrenaline wears off.” He bent to gather the dead weasels quickly, motioning for Levi to turn so he could put them in his bag. It was faintly gross to think about, but the bodies weren’t messy. All the damage they’d done had been internal. “Try not to squish them.”

Levi made a face. “I know there’s more following us than that.”

“I don’t think they were trying to overpower us just now. They’ve been following all day and we haven’t slowed down very much. I have a feeling that’s what they want. It’s like they’re waiting for us to weaken.”

“That isn’t defensive behavior.”

Erwin shook his head. “That’s right. If they just want us out of their territory there’s no reason to risk themselves trying to get more venom into our bodies. They need us to collapse, not just to leave.”

“Why would--” Levi stopped, though, looking faintly ill as he picked up on Erwin’s train of thought. “They’re hungry, too.”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Oh.”

Just like that, he and Levi had been welcomed into a food chain that did not involve supermarkets.

“Is the bite doing anything to you?” Levi asked after a few moments of motivated walking.

“I don’t feel any different--a little less clean, maybe. That’s something.” Erwin eyed the smaller shape next to him and sensed no immediate worsening of his symptoms. He walked much as he had before the attack, though Erwin suspected it was sheer bullheadedness and perhaps some residual adrenaline from the fight that made it possible. That was good. They would need both of those things. “No more focusing on whether or not I’m being bitten, though.”

“It just happened.” There was a touch of color to Levi’s cheeks when Erwin looked over.

“I know. But not again. You _cannot_ collapse. We’ll direct their focus onto me if they come back for us.” And they would come. Erwin was certain of that. The weasels would wait until they detected a change of pace or a faltering step. Any sign of weakness could set the whole colony swarming. Erwin didn’t have any illusions about what would happen to them if that occurred. There were more intimidating creatures on planet Earth. Individually, these weasels were no more lethal than a bad-tempered ferret, but against a swarm of dozens, hundreds, there was little way for Erwin or Levi to defend themselves. They’d be eaten alive before they made a dent in the colony’s numbers. Dying that way would be slow and ugly. All the weasels needed was a little time and the man and dragon would exhaust themselves. “Keep your pace as even as you can,” Erwin said grimly.

He could see that Levi understood.

* * *

“We’re close,” Erwin spoke up after a while. The words were difficult to believe. His breath caught sharply on every inhale, his legs twice their usual weight. If this was simple exhaustion he could only imagine Levi’s poisoning on top of it. “We should come up on another fence any time now.”

“Not a moment too soon,” Levi muttered. His gait was off. He’d falter and slow only to find some hidden reserve of strength and then he’d be off again, occasionally speeding defiantly to an almost-jog as he realized that each step he took was being carefully monitored. Their bluff must have been passable because the swarm did not move to overtake them. Erwin kept expecting it. Each time one of them tripped or drew up short he cast a glance over his shoulder, but he only ever saw their own tracks in the snow.

As though Erwin’s words had summoned it, the fence appeared, melting out of the trees and the gray winter haze with the illusion of having simply materialized. Something loosened minutely in Erwin’s chest even as something else tightened urgently, screaming madly to run, to get the hell out of there. He couldn’t have done it even if Levi hadn’t been so badly poisoned. The drake wasn’t the only one at the very edge of his limits. So, in spite of the crawling vulnerability he forced himself to plow forward at the same steady pace.

“Erwin. Do you hear--”

In front of them the fence hummed softly, almost below the range of hearing.

“It’s …”

 _Electrified_. Levi sighed, his spine curling forward. Erwin’s hand shot out and caught him by the elbow, his fingers gripping too harshly under the horrible shock of adrenaline. Levi snapped to attention under his hand, his hazy eyes going sharp with realization. He’d almost let himself sag to the ground, his muscles slipping momentarily from his tight control. Erwin held his gaze for a moment, his own heart beating a wild tattoo against the inside of his ribs, but a handful of seconds passed, then another, and all around them the trees kept their silence. The man’s fingers relaxed a fraction, but they did not release Levi’s elbow. Instead, he tugged lightly, urging him to move. Neither of them addressed what had almost happened.

“The fence isn’t high enough to keep us in here,” Erwin said instead. “We can follow it until we find a tree we can climb--either an overhanging branch or something close enough to jump over. We’ll ache tomorrow, but we’ll live.”

The drake’s breath hung in his chest, his arm twisting in Erwin’s grip until his hand found the man’s forearm. “It needs to happen fast.”

Erwin didn’t ask him if he would be able to climb a tree even if they found a good one and Levi didn’t volunteer any doubts. There wasn’t room for any. The hand on his arm shook with exhaustion, with illness, violent tremors passing through that small point of connection. It was the venom, Erwin remembered, flashing back to the hard spasms that wracked Levi’s body under the influence of the transformative drugs. Was he fighting all that off with willpower alone? “Keep being impossible,” Erwin said without thinking. The look on Levi’s face suggested that he didn’t entirely understand, which in itself was a marvel. “Only for a little longer.”

 _That_ , Levi did understand. He nodded faintly, his eyes glazed and bewildered. He wasn’t going to last much longer. Fighting the urge to nudge them into a quicker pace, Erwin gritted his teeth and kept his eyes on the treeline. If Levi’s hand bore down heavily on Erwin’s arm, it didn’t reflect in his steps. All of his concentration seemed focused on putting one foot in front of the other and making it seem like it wasn’t taking everything he had to do so. For the time being, at least, their pursuers seemed fooled.

“We’re going to be warm again within the hour,” Erwin predicted. “I’m going to stick you between me and the camp stove and we’ll proceed to have the best sleep of our lives.”

“Shit,” Levi whispered.

“If I get up before you do, I’ll skin our furry friends and you’ll wake up to the smell of breakfast cooking,” Erwin continued, his throat dry and rasping. “We’ll take part of the day to regroup--maybe a full day if you can’t shift just yet. I’d like to study our maps and reorient ourselves. Then, if you like, we can go back to bed.” Erwin found the energy, somehow, to turn his head and dredge up a playful wink. “I have yet to touch every single inch of you.”

There was absolutely no heat left in either of their bodies for arousal, but the corner of Levi’s mouth twitched. “Then what?”

They carried on that way for a while, Erwin’s plans for the future becoming increasingly tangled around prospects of warm sleeping bags and camp stoves and going to bed with his nose in Levi’s hair. He was vaguely aware that he’d mentioned spooning more than once, speculating on whether or not they would manage to get all of their clothes off before losing consciousness or if they’d wake up twisted in their leathers with one boot half-off. “We may be lucky if we hold it together long enough to pitch the tent and collect--” He stopped speaking abruptly, his eyes following the trunk of a likely tree to a branch that very nearly cleared the top of the fence. They would have to swing part of the way over and it would be an ugly drop to the ground, but they didn’t have time to be choosy. “Ten minutes,” he promised.

Erwin shrugged out of his bag and let it fall into the snow, adjusting his grip on the saddle as he shifted his weight and heaved it into the air with as much force as he could coax from his quivering muscles. The saddle dropped like a stone, clearing the fence so closely that Erwin couldn't have said whether it made contact or not. The wire links did not shiver, nor did the low frequency hum change. Otherwise it was too close to tell. Their bags followed immediately after. They were much easier to pitch across than the saddle had been, though Levi relinquished his into Erwin’s waiting hands instead of throwing it over himself.

There was no time to marvel at their success. “The weasels will probably be wondering about all the unusual activity,” Erwin guessed. “Go up ahead of me in case someone gets curious.” He laced his fingers together and leaned a shoulder into the tree, prepared to take Levi's weight.

The drake eyed Erwin's hands with a trepidation that he did not voice, his chin rising as he looked straight up at the branch he was supposed to be climbing to. He wet his lips with a quick swipe of his tongue--the only hesitation he allowed himself--and planted his boot at the center of Erwin's palm.

It wasn't graceful. Levi’s fingers scrabbled frantically for purchase, legs lashing out into empty air as he struggled against gravity and exhaustion and pain. Bark rained from above, forcing Erwin to turn his head as he blinked tiny intrusions from his eyes, but the dragon did not fall. His movements steadied and when Erwin looked up he was seated warily on the branch, leaning back into the trunk and closing his eyes for the absolute briefest of moments while his chest heaved. Erwin could _see_ him make the decision not to stop there.

“You next.”

Hooking his leg more securely around the branch, Levi stretched forward along its length so his arms dangled freely. Erwin could _almost_ reach the limb himself if he tried jumping for it, but Levi snagged him by the wrists without any discussion and by some miracle of strength he pulled at Erwin's weight until there was rough wood beneath the man’s palms.

“Thanks,” Erwin grunted. His body screamed protests as his arms flexed, dragging himself a few inches higher so he could work his elbows over the top of the branch. He couldn't have done it at all had he still been wearing his bag. The extra weight would have done him in. Between his dangling boots he could see the first weasels arriving, standing on their back legs and peering up with beady eyes as they shuffled around their neighbors and chattered loudly. More arrived.

Levi gathered a fistful of Erwin's coat as the man paused, his eyes on the scene developing below. The drake had to let go to avoid being hit by Erwin's leg as he mounted the tree branch, but his hands returned quickly, grabbing Erwin by the belt and yanking him properly into place. The drake’s fingers dug harshly into Erwin's hips. “We aren't high enough.”

“The next one up should do it. I’ll go first so I'm closest to the trunk.” If the weasels could climb trees that would put Erwin's body between them and Levi, who probably couldn't withstand many more bites before he lost consciousness altogether. Losing consciousness in a tree was just about the worst case scenario--right after being swarmed where they sat and plummeting to their deaths while being simultaneously eaten alive, of course. Ideally, the weasels would show more caution than that, coming up slowly rather than charging in.

Their positions reversed, Erwin rose carefully to his feet, wrapping his arms around the next branch up. It was much closer to him than the first had been, falling about mid-chest as he stood. He only had to place his hands over the top and push down, then he was already halfway there. It was easier than the first step had been.

“They look like they're about to lose their shit.”

Levi was right. A quick glance at the ground confirmed that a few of the weasels had front paws on the base of the tree, looking up as their tiny noses worked the air. “We’re high enough here,” Erwin told him, reaching down to catch Levi's ankle and guide it over the branch. The drake’s back shuddered into Erwin's chest each time he drew breath and it was all the man could do to keep his embrace loose as he fastened his arms around Levi. All he wanted to do was pull them together and take five, his chin tucked into the top of Levi's knit beanie hat as they gave their muscles a moment to stop howling. It was a dangerous thought. Instead of acting on it, Erwin nudged the drake away from him. “Almost there.” He could have been speaking to either one of them.

Levi wasted little time scooting forward along the branch, finding new energy in the promise of safety. He looked back at Erwin, frowning, as the wood beneath him bowed with an ominous creak. “This is it.” But he figured out on his own how to proceed. Holding on tight and dropping back below the branch, Levi kicked his legs out into empty space, once, twice, then he was gone, swinging neatly over the fence with plenty of clearance to spare. He hit the snow on the other side with no more grace than their saddle, groaning quietly.

“Are you okay?”

It was a long, tense moment before Levi rolled out of Erwin's way with a muttered curse. “It’s not as soft a landing as it looks.”

Levi's departure caused a good deal of commotion below. There was no way of knowing how much the weasels understood about what had just happened, but the colony did choose that moment to swell upwards. They were nimble, Erwin thought absently as he followed Levi's path to the end of the branch, careful even in his haste. The little creatures had no trouble finding footholds, running vertically as easily as they ran over flat land. Erwin caught the first one as it tried climbing the back of his leathers, slinging it straight down into the fence below. It made contact with a sound reminiscent of an insect striking a bug zapper.

The others hesitated, edging towards him along the branch rather than attempt a direct charge. Erwin moved quickly, holding tight to the bark and swinging his leg over to let himself drop. As if he'd broken a spell, the swarm surged forward like a colony of ants, spilling over the sides of the limb and scuttling along the bottom. A slight weight moved over his gloved knuckles just as he swung free, then there was a wild plummet and the tear of frigid air and the impact of feet hitting the ground. He sank about a foot into untouched snow before he lost his balance and went head first into the ground. It wasn't the most dignified escape he’d ever managed, but he knew it had indeed been an escape when he felt Levi's frantic hands on him, shoving him roughly onto his side.

“‘M fine,” Erwin groused, sighing as he was released just as quickly. Levi's arms came around him in a brief, crushing hug and then he was gone, leaving Erwin to crack his eyes open on his own. Levi had been right. The snow was not as soft as it looked. Certain that he'd pulled something--several somethings--in the backs of his calves, Erwin staggered to his feet and went to help Levi with their tent. “I'll get this,” he told the drake. “But we need wood.” He'd always been quicker with the tent, so Levi gladly left him to it with a clipped nod, his eyes hard with the determination it took to keep going. He was sluggish as he moved away, not bothering anymore with hiding the way his feet dragged. He needed to warm up, urgently, and walking would help a little with that, but Erwin would need to have the tent ready for him as soon as possible.

He worked faster than he thought his body capable of, barely looking up as Levi returned to drop an armful of firewood onto the extra tarp Erwin laid out. The drake looked critically at his handiwork and shuffled off again for more without a word.

Without Levi's blistering dragon fire to get the wood started, Erwin was left to old-fashioned devices, poking gently at a small pile of kindling as he breathed hopefully into the belly of their cook stove. He'd never been so impatient to see Levi’s dragon form return as he was right then, sorting through tiny twigs and trying to find some that weren't damp. He'd dragged their wood into the tent once it was set up, their bags and saddle left forgotten in one corner as Erwin worked.

Levi shrugged inside, dropping a last pile of wood into their collection and going straight to his knees. “That had better be enough.”

Erwin turned to consider the stack. “It will get us through the night.” He offered the little flame a bit more twig, gratified when it latched on hungrily. “And good news. We might actually have a fire to burn.”

“Mm.” Levi seemed dangerously content to just lay there face-down on the bottom of the tent, his boots still outside in the snow.

“Close that up so the tent will warm up,” Erwin suggested. He'd gotten the fire past the touch and go stages of infancy, but it wasn't quite ready to burn on its own. As Erwin fed it another, slightly larger twig, Levi drew his feet up reluctantly and tapped them against each other to shake some of the snow off before rolling over.

Almost as soon as the tent was closed, there was an immediate shift in temperature. Erwin sighed, removing his gloves to press his hands briefly against the warming metal stove. “Levi. Put this in there _slowly_ as that last twig burns.” It was the first real piece of firewood they'd added, not just kindling or twigs. “If you lay it right in the fire before it catches you’ll smother it, so make sure you--” he paused. Levi was shrugging out of his heavy coat, yanking the zipper down the front of his leathers so he could remove his arms. His liner was yanked up, then he took the small log from Erwin and his entire hand disappeared into the stove with a blissful sigh. “Alright, the fire is your job then.”

Levi smirked weakly.

While the drake coaxed their camp stove to life, Erwin moved carefully around the tent, removing his boots and setting them in their drip pan, hanging clothing, rolling out their bedrolls to warm. He stripped off his leathers and liner, but left his underwear, which was still blessedly dry, then he turned to Levi, who was still half-clothed and hugging the camp stove, his eyelids heavy with exhaustion. He tensed as a hard spasm tore through him, but he didn’t acknowledge it except to squeeze his eyes shut. The drake made a small noise of protest as Erwin peeled him from the hot metal, but allowed himself to be undressed, lifting a leg or his hips as needed.

“Are you going to be okay?” Erwin asked him after a moment. Levi's head had been lolling into his shoulder as he pulled the liner from the dragon’s legs, giving him a somewhat disturbing impression of a rag doll.

“Hmm?”

“Your body isn't shutting down to hibernate, is it?” The man clarified.

“No.” Levi's voice was thin. “Not now. Just tired. Hurts.”

“The venom?”

“Mm.”

Erwin assumed that meant yes. Levi had progressed into the harsh, wracking shudders that characterized his first encounter with transformative drugs, forcing Erwin to pause several times as the dragon went rigid in his arms. He barely made a sound though his breath caught somewhere in the back of his throat, held there until the spasms eased up only to be followed closely by the next set. Erwin stripped the dragon to his underwear and bundled one of the sleeping bags around him, stopping only to unpack the dead weasels and toss them out into the snow. Erwin hoped they didn't draw anything else to them, but he was too far gone himself to secure the food properly. He could only hope their luck would hold out through the night, since he didn't think either of them  was in any condition to fight off a grizzly bear.

“Erwin,” Levi mumbled.

“I'm here. I almost forgot to leave our weasels outside.” He wiggled gratefully into the second sleeping bag, leaving it open so Levi could roll into him. He reached across the smaller body to zip them up, but he only made it part-way before the zipper snagged on something he didn't care to fix. Molding himself tightly around Levi with a grumbled, “Fuck it,” he was out cold before he even fully settled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now I'm also out. Night everyone!


	41. Signed and Sealed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erwin and Levi do a few important things but mostly they just do each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for gross sap.

Erwin slept like a dead man. He slept the hard, dreamless sleep of the critically exhausted, waking so gradually that he had to take a moment to mentally orient himself. They still hunkered in the shadow of the fence, tucked just inside the treeline where they’d (probably) be overlooked if someone passed overhead. Erwin imagined he could still hear the low hum of electricity on the quiet winter air outside. They hadn’t been choosy when they set down. It was a wonder they’d found the energy to make camp at all. Fatigue still clung tenaciously to Erwin’s bones, but he suspected it would hang on until they were truly safe in front of their own fireplace. 

But he was  _ warm _ . Erwin stretched drowsily along the body that draped over him, simply enjoying the shift of bare skin against his, the solid press of muscle and bone. His bedmate did not lie pliant, nudging back until Erwin’s eyes cracked open just a sliver. Levi hovered close, looking far too pleased with himself.

“What have you done?” Erwin mumbled, his voice scratchy with sleep. 

“See for yourself.” Levi’s hips moved, demonstrating that-- _ oh _ \--he’d gotten rid of the second sleeping bag and joined Erwin in his. There was precious little fabric to prevent Erwin from feeling just  _ how _ well-rested the drake was feeling. Suddenly, his heavy eyelids took a different meaning. “I think you made me a promise.” He spoke slowly, his voice low.

Erwin arched an eyebrow, but his hands found the drake’s thighs beneath the cover of the sleeping bag and kneaded into hard muscle. “I  _ seem _ to remember that promise beginning with breakfast.”

_ “Really?” _ Levi asked absently, drawing out the ‘e’ a little longer than normal speech required. His leg found its way over Erwin’s hips as he centered himself, settling naturally into the space between his legs like he belonged there. His bare cock strained against the tightening front of the detective’s briefs, rutting up alongside Erwin’s length. “I could have sworn you said that we were going to spend the  _ entire _ morning becoming a fully mated pair.”

“Fully mated?” Erwin echoed.

“Mm,” Levi agreed, bending forward over the man’s body and claiming his mouth without preamble. Erwin’s fingertips butted up against the sharp jut of the drake’s hips and curled around them, his thumbs pressing into the faint hollows just inside the bone. 

“Levi--mmf.”

The drake had gotten good with his teeth, Erwin thought, his mind going fuzzy around the edges as Levi pulled his bottom lip into his mouth and nipped. 

“Levi.” It took a moment to recall what he was going to follow with as he neatly dodged another kiss. “Don’t you want to do this more … comfortably? In a bed?”

Levi stilled. His sigh was the barest breath against Erwin’s cheek. “I want to cross the finish line with my mate. I don’t give a shit about beds.” He snatched one of Erwin’s hands from his hip and pressed it between his legs. “Does it feel like I need a bed?” 

Erwin frowned at his fingers where they folded around Levi. The drake’s pulse throbbed into his palm, but there was an odd tension running through him, something Erwin could feel through every point of shared contact. It was in his voice, tangled around the words Erwin reviewed quickly in his mind. The urgency there wasn’t right. It was  _ off _ , a touch too … fearful? “Is something wrong?”

The drake twitched minutely, looking away as his brows huddled fretfully together. Yes, there was. Erwin released Levi’s cock gently, stroking a thumb down the point of a hip in apology. 

“I have the strangest feeling that there’s something I need to know.” And yes, the drake looked guilty enough to confirm it. “What we did before, agreeing to move slowly … it makes me question this haste. And  _ why _ do you feel so tense?” Erwin ran his hands along Levi’s tight thighs, knowing the rest of his body was in similar condition. The drake shook his head, at a loss. The way he looked at Erwin was strange and sad, like there was something enormous he wanted the man to understand, but couldn’t quite come out and explain. “What’s wrong, Levi?”

“Nothing. I enjoyed what we did the other night,” he said slowly. 

“But?”

“But it was … difficult. Unbearable.” 

Erwin sat up quickly, dropping Levi abruptly into his lap. The drake didn’t bother rearranging his legs, leaving them folded on either side of Erwin’s thighs as his eyes went a little wide. “No, that’s not how I meant.” His sigh that time was pure frustration. “Shit, please don’t do that.” Grabbing the man’s hands, Levi returned them firmly to his hips and held them there. Erwin hadn’t even realized he’d been withdrawing. “I told you that I wanted it.” 

“You  _ didn’t?” _ Erwin could feel his own tension coiling through every one of his muscles, centering mostly in his forearms. If Levi decided to let go of his hands they’d go flying back like rubber bands.

“I  _ did,”  _ the drake growled. He looked almost like he wanted to hit something--possibly the side of Erwin’s head, or his own. “We didn’t go too far, stop looking at me like that. I’m not something fragile that you dropped on the floor.” 

Erwin blinked, feeling absurdly adrift. And nauseous. He didn’t often find himself worrying whether his words would come out right, but he honestly had no idea what Levi needed or what he was trying to say. He hadn’t seen the drake quite like this, fighting for words of his own and, admittedly, mostly losing. “I know you aren’t fragile,” he started to say, but they could address that later if they had to. “If we didn’t go too far, then what made it so unbearable?” 

“We didn’t go far  _ enough,”  _ Levi snapped, his voice rising on the last word. He sounded angry, but Erwin didn’t think it was all meant for him. “I know you’re not trying to toy with me. My head knows that. But I still keep thinking maybe you’ll realize you fucked up by taking things this far.”

“Why would I realize that?”

“I’m not a smart choice for a mate. Everyone seems to get that but you. They look at you like you’re completely insane and it’s like you can’t see them doing it. But what happens when you do finally notice what they’re noticing, that there’s  _ nothing _ I can offer you? You deserve everything and I’m just so much  _ less-- _ ” 

For a blessed moment, Levi seemed to run out of words, his eyes a bit wild. Erwin sat there in stunned silence trying to pull some sort of argument together--something that stood any chance at all of addressing the enormity of what Levi had just revealed. He’d been so sure that Levi was beginning to understand his worth, his  _ worthiness  _ as a mate, to borrow a dragon concept. 

“It’s fucking torture, being this close to you when I keep thinking about all the reasons you have to choose someone else. I keep thinking that you  _ need _ someone else, that I’ve stolen something that doesn’t belong to me. But I’m still selfish enough to be afraid that when you say we’ll take it  _ slow _ , wanting to wait and do this in a  _ bed _ , that what you mean is you’re not sure you want to bond with me.” It sounded too much like a question to count as the statement it was probably intended to be.

“I understand,” Erwin said quickly, feeling faintly alarmed. Runaway words had always been Hanji’s area, not Levi’s, and he wasn’t sure how to address it. He wasn’t sure where to  _ begin _ . “Let me have my hands,” seemed like a reasonable starting point. Levi released them like he’d been burnt, gathering strength in his limbs to slide sideways out of Erwin’s lap. “No,” he said firmly, winding his arms around Levi and drawing him back in. He wasn’t gentle. That had been the problem, hadn’t it? The care he’d taken looked tentative to the drake, looked flimsy and irresolute. So when he held onto Levi it was more like a vice trying to glue their bodies together than a man offering an embrace. He squeezed almost to the point of pain, his forehead bearing down into the notch of Levi’s shoulder. 

“I’ve used every argument I know to try, hoping that something I said could explain how completely unnecessary all this worry is. I am already so  _ solidly _ yours that imagining a change of heart is incomprehensible. I thought I could show you that if I took the time, if I was slow and careful. I didn’t realize it would have the opposite effect.” 

The long scar over Levi’s jugular was on that side, a silver and bloodless contrast to the drake’s rosy throat. It was the scar that Erwin had first put his mouth to an eternity ago--the same one he’d been carefully avoiding ever since. “You said I’d be yours once you came inside of me,” Erwin said. “That’s what will make your pheromones change. To tell other dragons that you’re spoken for.”

The drake’s nod was small. Erwin felt it only as a faint brush against the side of his head. 

“You also said,” Erwin drew his head back a fraction, knowing that his breath would fan over the bunched scar tissue as he spoke, “that I could touch these ‘later.’ No,” he added as he felt muscle tensing against him, a shoulder starting to lift defensively. “I think it’s time we both stopped making assumptions about what the other wants. Unless you have a reason of your own to stop me?”

Levi barely seemed to be breathing. His body could have been stone in Erwin’s crushing embrace if not for the frantic beat of his heart. Half expecting to be refused, the man leaned his forehead into the side of Levi’s jaw and listened to the drake’s unsteady breath, waiting. Ultimately, Levi didn’t say anything. The defensive shrug relaxed a fraction--just enough to let his shoulder fall back to its natural position. It left the area open for Erwin, not the warmest invitation, but not a refusal either. “I didn’t think you had.” The detective dipped his head, letting the tip of his nose skim along the jagged furrow. Levi was taking quicker breaths, but that was nothing compared to the way his body jerked beneath the flat of Erwin’s tongue, his hands flying up to grab at the detective. “Can you feel it?”

“Not--” the drake had to swallow. “Not everywhere.”

“Where?” 

“Just the outside edge.”

“Mm.” He expected as much. Most of Levi's scars were deep enough to have damaged the nerves in the skin. Erwin lapped experimentally at the outermost rim where the flesh felt harder, pressing his tongue into an interesting furrow he found along the path to Levi’s ear. The drake fidgeted self-consciously in his lap, his cock wilting and discouraged, but he seemed to be clamping down hard on his desire to withdraw. Erwin could feel it in his hands, the way his fingers curled like they wanted to push, but didn’t. “I’ll bet there are also places where the nerves are hypersensitive,” the man predicted quietly. “Maybe here somewhere, along the outer edges.” He traced the uneven path with the tip of his tongue, trailing upwards with painstaking deliberation until a slight catch to Levi's breath alerted him that something had changed. Circling the area like he was marking it for future reference, Erwin closed his lips over the spot and sucked the skin into his mouth.

That time, the drake actually gasped, his head tipping in surprise and inadvertently giving Erwin more space to work with. 

“Good?”

_ “Weird,”  _ Levi corrected, but it didn't sound like a complaint. He was far from comfortable, but his fidgety squirm had lost a little of its rigidity and that gave Erwin hope. “But why?” He asked. 

“Because we’re completing our courtship today and I want all of you. Every inch.” Taking the drake beneath the thighs to lift him off his legs, Erwin hoisted him up and tipped them both back onto the outside of the sleeping bag. He swallowed Levi's startled grunt, nipping at the taut line of his mouth until he felt the drake’s tentative response. Slowly, he let Levi take his body weight, parting his lips to coax a hot tongue into joining the kiss as he eased himself onto the smaller chest. This was familiar territory for Levi and his body warmed beneath Erwin's, relinquishing some of that awful tension. His arms snaked around the man's neck. 

“Do you know how long I've looked at you and wondered what all these scars would feel like in my mouth?” He spoke against Levi's skin, dropping another kiss mid-thought. “Each one looks a little different, like it might have a different texture.” Another kiss, lingering, and those arms tightened around Erwin's neck. Levi was too pinned down to move his hips much, but he certainly tried, whining quietly when he wasn't able to get much friction. He was hardening up again, lulled by the kisses if not the words. “I tried to be  _ so _ delicate because I knew where they came from. I didn't think it was appropriate to tell you how attractive I find them. That was a mistake. I should have told you immediately.”

Erwin slid lower, picking up the long, trailing scar where it crossed Levi's collarbone and dipping his tongue into the deep furrow. He felt a ripple of tension, easily suppressed by thumbs on nipples. He circled the hardening flesh as his lips closed over a clavicle, sucking briefly. “All else aside, you still got these fighting. You have them because you were strong enough to walk away from every opponent they set in front of you.”

Erwin traced lower, tweaking the drake's nipples to full hardness as he moved, seeking more of that sensitized flesh along the margin of Levi's scars. “I have  _ always  _ admired that strength. But I never told you how arousing it is that no one could ever best you.” He paused his quest briefly to tease the nearest nipple, scraping his teeth over the pebbled skin.

“Oh,” Levi gasped, pressing up into Erwin like his back wanted to arch. It didn't have the space, and Levi's growl was decidedly frustrated. He twisted fingers into Erwin's hair, but did not pull him away when the man’s mouth started on the next line of scar tissue. There were plenty he’d missed as he traveled lower, but he wanted time for those. There would be time, he determined, because they were going to live. They were going to live because, if nothing else, Erwin would not let Levi die wondering if Erwin wanted him. 

“I've seen you do things, survive things that would crush most people. From the very start you’ve been impossible. You’ve impressed me again and again and I think about that when I touch these.” He nudged his closed lips along an interesting knot of skin. It was knotted, yes, but the skin itself was so smooth--such an intriguing combination. “I hate that you expect me to think they're awful. What they mean to me is beautiful. But beyond all that, just looking at them out of context--they're incredibly arousing.”

“You've lost your mind,” Levi mumbled. 

“I haven't. It's actually pretty common to think scars are a turn-on. Plenty of people get hot over them.” Erwin buried his nose in the deep slice across Levi's navel, nuzzling into the furrow with a small, pleased sound. Levi's fingers tightened in his hair and the sound turned into a moan. “I want  _ everything _ . There is no part of you that I don’t adore.”

“Erwin.” Levi's voice was barely a whisper. He tugged at the blonde hair in his fist until the man lifted his head. The drake’s cheeks were flushed, but his eyes were large and anxious. “You won't be able to undo this. You're  _ certain?” _

Erwin paused, abandoning his pursuit of scar tissue to wiggle back up Levi's body and press his lips firmly to the drake's jaw. His free hand brushed at the drake’s fringe as his mouth moved against flushed skin. “I'm certain. Trust me.” He left a short trail of kisses on his way to Levi’s ear, taking the lobe between his teeth and sucking briefly. “You can’t see around all those crazy thoughts in your head, but you will someday. Until then, trust me to see around them for you.”

Levi’s breath hitched almost imperceptibly in his chest, his lips parting in surprise. 

“Okay?”

The drake swallowed thickly, a brief tremor running through his slight frame. “Okay.”

“I’ll need lubricant.”

“I pulled it out before I woke you up.” Levi's blush was truly something fierce. “It's by the top of the sleeping bag.”

“Good.” Another brief kiss, then Erwin was moving, rolling off Levi to snag the little tube from its resting place. Somewhere along the line he lost his briefs, peeling them from his ass in a wholly unsexy way and kicking them blindly to some other part of the tent. “I'll go ahead and prepare myself for you.” He kneeled across Levi's hips, a knee on each side, and snapped open the bottle. “I'm not sure I'll have the patience to walk you through it.” And also he wasn't sure how Levi's sharp nails were going to work out inside such a delicate passage, but he left that unsaid. Instead, he squeezed a generous line of lubricant onto his index and middle fingers, reaching behind himself to press the first finger to his entrance. 

Levi's expression was intent, his pupils blown so wide with arousal that they almost,  _ almost  _ looked round. He opened his mouth as if to say something and then closed it again, looking overheated and thunderstruck. Erwin bent to kiss his hot cheek, heard the drake's breath go ragged in response to his own deep inhale. 

“Is it already in?” Levi asked. 

Erwin didn't reply right away. It had been a while and he was  _ tight,  _ one finger filling him to the brim even as he craved more. When he seated himself to the knuckle, he nodded, flexing the digit experimentally. “Mm.”

“It hurts?”

“No, it just feels full.” He pulled out, but pressed back in immediately, setting up an experimental rhythm. “Next time I'll do it slowly so you can watch.” But Levi was shaking his head. 

“Next time, I want to  _ feel _ it. You can demonstrate on me.”

“Alright.” Erwin kissed him, nudging his lips apart and slipping his tongue between Levi's teeth, his hips rocking back as he fucked himself open for the drake. His tongue matched the rhythm unconsciously, sliding over Levi's in time with his thrusts. When the drake made the connection, he moaned, the sound reverberating through Erwin as well. He reached up and grabbed at the sides of Erwin's ass, unable to reach him fully, but getting enough of him to pull the cleft apart and expose Erwin more fully to the air. 

Erwin hissed, letting himself be tugged against Levi so that their cocks aligned. Levi thrust into his abdomen, pressing up with the balls of his feet. His scrabbling fingers found Erwin's as he was preparing to add a second finger, tangling briefly before landing right at the man's entrance. The very tip of his finger nudged into him, eliciting sharp gasps from them both. 

“Jesus, how am I going to fit in there?”

_ “Tightly,” _ Erwin promised, as close as a purr as he'd ever gotten. He rolled his hips seeking more sensation and Levi sucked in a quiet breath, his finger catching and twitching deeper. 

“Seriously.” His voice was uneven, but he withdrew his finger to look doubtfully at its slim outline. “Is this going to hurt you?”

“Not in any way I’ll mind.” Erwin inched two fingers past the tight ring of muscle, feeling it burn deliciously as it stretched. He licked his lips and was pleased to see the hunger in Levi's expression as he followed the gesture. “I’ll still feel you in me tomorrow. Especially if you take me hard.”

Levi's eyes darkened. “Is that … you asking me to?”

“Oh, absolutely.” Erwin spread his fingers one way, then another, impatiently coaxing the tight muscles apart. He really would be sore if he rushed this preparation, but it was impossible not to with Levi looking at him that way. “I want to feel you inside of me for  _ days.” _

Levi grabbed him and yanked him down, biting sharply into his shoulder as he thrust along the length of Erwin's erection. They were both fully hard, precome spreading slickly between them. There was more of it than Erwin expected and he looked down, wondering if somehow Levi had come without him realizing. “Did you …”

“No,” Levi thrust again, breathless. “It's the mating. I think my pheromones have started changing. There will be more.”

“More precome?” Erwin asked.

Levi actually laughed a little. It was brief, so brief, but completely genuine. “More  _ everything.” _

It was Erwin's turn to flush. He flushed  _ hard.  _ His hand had gone still inside his body as he reddened to his toes, feeling the heat pool deep inside of his abdomen. His cock twitched dangerously. He lifted quickly off of Levi, pressing his free hand to the dragon’s navel so he couldn't thrust up against him again. “We’d better--” he had to clear his throat, drawing a cautious smirk from the drake. “I think we’d better leave off on the rutting for a moment.”

That smirk became a little more confident. He wiggled his hips as though settling in, intentionally or unintentionally rubbing against Erwin's balls as the man settled a little farther up on his hips. Retaliation was swift. Erwin pulled his slick fingers free and sat directly over Levi's cock, adjusting his seat until the hard flesh aligned perfectly with the seam of his ass. Erwin's lips curled as he clenched his muscles around Levi, sliding along his full length. 

The drake's smirk vanished with a sharp cry, his hips bucking up into Erwin as his cock spilled fresh precome between them. The man felt it happen that time and he moaned quietly. He took himself quickly in hand, squeezing harshly at the base of his cock. 

“Erwin,” Levi breathed, pinned and squirming as his sharp nails pricked Erwin's thighs with the force of his grip. “Do  _ something _ . Shit, I need--” he cut himself off with a small growl and a failed attempt at a thrust. Erwin had his hips trapped. 

“I know what you need.” Erwin pressed the leaking head of his cock into the deep scar along Levi's navel, dragging his own precome along the textured skin. “Look at me first.” When Levi cracked his eyes open at met Erwin's gaze, though, the man shook his head. “Not my face. Look at what you’ve done to me.”

The muscles in Levi's abdomen tightened as he moved to lift himself a fraction, his eyes falling on the rosy head of Erwin's cock where it scraped lightly over a gnarled ridge of tissue, its owner panting as he leaned over the dragon. Levi inhaled abruptly and the movement knocked Erwin's erection back into the furrowed dip where his scar was deepest. Levi could only stare, utterly transfixed, as Erwin pressed his palm into the mess of precome a little farther down the drake's body. 

“Look,” Erwin said again, unnecessarily, closing his hand over the top of his cock and pressing down, thrusting once along the makeshift track that the scar created. Levi opened his mouth and whined as the movement also ran him through the cleft of Erwin's ass, but his eyes seemed stuck, glued intently on the strange jointure of their bodies. “I could come like this. It wouldn't take much. I'm already so close.” He rolled his hips with agonizing slowness, but he was still poised right on the edge, too close. “This was all you--the thought of having you in me, of being yours. Your mate.”

Erwin had to let go of himself quickly, lifting off of Levi altogether to avoid doing just as he described. He dropped to his elbows, cradling the drake's head with his forearms, and Levi tipped his chin up to meet him with an expression so raw and open and fragile that something in the man's chest went immediately tight. He looked … blown over. 

Erwin kissed him gently, just the faintest press of closed lips, and Levi's breathing hitched once. Again. There were no tears when Erwin looked, but the dragon’s face was heartbreaking to look at, torn open in the tenderest way. Erwin admired it for a moment before reaching back down, slicking the drake's own precome along his length. “Ready?”

Levi's eyes widened a fraction. “Now?” He asked hoarsely, his voice unrecognizable.

“Mm.”

Levi reached up, his fingertips skimming lightly, reverently, over Erwin's temple, down the side of his face, his lips. It was intimate. In ways, it was the most intimately Levi had ever touched him. It was the faint awe on his face, how absolutely besotted he looked. Erwin turned his head into the touch, aligning the tip of Levi's cock with his entrance and meeting his gaze, holding it. 

“Now,” the drake rasped, a statement rather than a question. Holding his hip in place with one hand, Erwin bent his knees and bore his weight down. 

Yes, it was tight. The stretch burned through him as muscle parted, pushed just a fraction past its limits. Erwin felt it all the way up his spine, through his abdomen, the dull pressure blossoming into the leading edge of pain. He closed his eyes briefly, concentrating on easing Levi into him. The drake gasped as his cock reacted almost immediately to the pressure, reflexively spurting precome to ease its passage forward. That would be extremely useful, Erwin's mind supplied. They likely wouldn't need any additional lubricant as long as that kept up. The head of Levi's cock poised just inside his body and already Erwin could tell how different it would be from human sex. The drake was  _ hot.  _ It had been readily apparent when he handled Levi with his hands, but his insides must have understood that temperature differently because the head of his cock was  _ searing _ . The fluids it pumped into him were even hotter, painting the path ahead with soothing heat. 

“Erwin?”

“I'm okay. Just adjusting.” Erwin sank just a little farther and something gave, the tight ring of muscle easing off as it acclimated. After that, it was easier, Levi's cock pressing carefully into him on a track of natural lubricant. It practically glided. “That's good stuff,” he intoned, pain-free enough to moan as he felt another wave fill him. Most men produced that much when they  _ came,  _ Christ almighty. “Somebody should figure out the formula for that.”

“Filthy,” Levi chided softly, his eyes affectionate. Erwin butted up against the drake's pelvis, finding himself fully seated. “This is … so much tighter than a breeding sleeve.”

Erwin clenched around him in reply and he came off the sleeping bag, his hips bucking. There wasn't anywhere to go, though, under Erwin's weight and Levi groaned, long and anguished. His body flexed beneath the man, seeking movement as his cock twitched with one of those micro ejaculations. The pain had taken the dangerous, immediate edge off of Erwin's arousal, but if Levi kept filling his ass that way he was going to be in trouble again very quickly. He leaned down, taking Levi beneath the shoulders and pulling him upright so that he straddled the drake’s lap. It was a complete reversal of their starting position, taking away the leverage Levi would need to thrust into him until his body adjusted to his cock. He looped his arms around Levi and drew him in, chest to chest. “I need just a minute. Then I'm all yours.”

“You're already mine.” Levi's voice was low and growly, coming as a bit of a surprise. He latched onto the man’s neck, nudging Erwin’s head out of the way to raise possessive bruises with nips and hard suction. Erwin really wished he'd read the sex section in Hanji’s book. It had just been too overwhelming at the time. Now, he suspected that Levi's sudden, confident declaration was related to the changes taking place inside of him--some sort of hormonal storm that came with the pheromone change--but he had no way of knowing that for sure because he  _ hadn't read the sex chapter.  _ Erwin was content just to let him have at it, though, knowing how mangled his throat would look afterwards and not really minding. If they showed up at the finish line and he still wore the marks, it would only make it more obvious to everyone that they were bonded. Erwin reached up and ran his fingers through Levi's hair, scratching at his scalp in the way that always made him moan appreciatively. 

“I'm yours,” Erwin agreed. “Your mate.” He let himself fall back, pulling Levi down atop him. “Make it official.”

The dragon leaned over him, his palms flat on Erwin's chest. He looked incredible, his hair a mess and his lips kiss-swollen, poised to claim him. Levi released a hard breath through his mouth, pulling out almost all the way before reversing direction and pushing slowly back in with a long hiss. 

“You can move a little more,” Erwin assured him, and relief washed over the drake’s face. That time, it was more of a proper thrust, still careful, but less tentative. For the first few passes, Erwin could see Levi muddling through it, frowning faintly as he acclimated. Then Erwin said, “You can quit thinking so hard. I'm ready,” and something important clicked. Levi rolled his hips in a proper thrust, burying himself all the way to the pelvis with a low moan. He moved frictionlessly, bless all that precome. Erwin could feel it shifting around inside of him as each thrust drove the fluids farther into his body, but there was always more to replace it. Each time he drove into Erwin he changed the angle a little. The man thought it was innocent experimentation until the head of Levi's cock rutted up against the place inside of him that lit him up like he'd been shocked, his back arching as pleasure blew him over like an unexpected wave. “There,” he stuttered. Where had Levi learned about that? “Right there.”

Suspicion was thrown from his mind as Levi set a quick, brutal rhythm, angling to hit that spot inside of Erwin with each thrust. It wasn't going to last long. The man peaked again quickly, lunging quickly to an edge he'd barely seen looming ahead of him. He'd been too close to completion too many times. There was no slow build, just blinding pleasure and the incredible rush of a near-fall. 

“Close,” he gasped. He clamped down hard on his control, not wanting it to end, but then Levi took his cock and  _ squeezed  _ and control tore itself from his fingers. Erwin heard himself shout, his muscles clenching so hard around Levi that he imagined he felt every inch of the drake as he spilled over his fingers. 

“Erwin, shit,” Levi whined, come-slick fingers sliding hedonistically up his own chest. His angle changed and each thrust deepened, driving farther into Erwin's body as he sought his own completion, “Erwin.”

The man reached up and took his drake by the wrists, riding the tiny aftershocks of his own pleasure as he pressed his thumbs firmly into the drake's skin. He slid up until he found the spot he wanted, alerted by the sharp cry and the brief falter to the rhythm of Levi’s hips. Erwin pressed into the spot, undulating his thumb to milk the scent glands lying just beneath the surface of Levi’s skin. The drake's rhythm broke altogether and gave way to a hard, full-body writhe, his breath catching in his throat with a strangled gasp. For a moment, Erwin thought he'd started to come, but the moment passed too quickly, Levi catching his rhythm again in earnest. His hands shook in Erwin’s grasp. 

“What--”

“Harder,” Erwin encouraged. “I want everything.  _ Harder.”  _ He freed Levi's wrists and wrapped his fingers around his bruised throat, rubbing the unknown scent into the skin there. 

_ “Oh,”  _ was all Levi could manage. His eyes were enormous, his attention locked on the slow descent of Erwin's hands over his chest, his stomach. He let the last of his control fall away, grabbing the base of Erwin's thighs for better purchase and slamming them together with a shuddering moan. The pattern was falling apart, each exhale coming out as a small, broken cry as he pounded ruthlessly, deliciously, into the man's body. Erwin's hands drifted lower, passing over his abdomen and taking his softening length in one hand, his balls in the other, coming back up to press the scent into his hips, trailing it around over the swell of his ass. 

And just like that, Levi crested, his body snapping taut as his eyes finally closed, forced shut by the strength of his orgasm. The sound he made was unforgettable, a dry sob that came with an immense pressure in Erwin's ass. His eyes widened as he realized what that was, the heat of his intense blush almost matching the heat of the fluid that Levi's cock was filling him with. It was too much to hold, spilling out of him onto the top layer of their sleeping bag in slippery rivulets. Levi turned and bit down, hard, on Erwin's knee, his hips jerking with each powerful spasm that rocked through him. For a long moment he actually seemed to stop breathing. Then he tipped forward, slumping bonelessly onto Erwin's chest. 

“I am  _ all over you,”  _ the drake mumbled. He sounded completely wrung out, and for good reason if the slipping feeling in Erwin's ass was anything to go by. It felt like they were about to have a mess on their hands. 

“And in me.” There was a note of stunned satisfaction in Erwin's tone, his hands stroking the side of Levi's head as the drake worked on coming back to himself. For a long time all he could do was lay there and breathe as he softened inside of Erwin and ultimately slipped free, releasing a truly wince-worthy amount of spunk onto their sleeping bag. Thankfully, the same material that made it fit for the arctic also prevented anything from soaking into the fabric, but there was a deeply unromantic puddle forming under Erwin's behind and he shifted uncomfortably trying to avoid it. The movement seemed to rouse Levi and he shifted, pushing himself up. Erwin didn't even protest when he rolled completely off him because it meant he was getting a towel. He actually came back with both a towel and a cloth, bless him, nudging Erwin's legs apart to wipe him up. 

“I can do that,” the man protested, but Levi only glanced at him briefly before continuing, weirdly intent on his task. There was a strange reverence in the way he worked, like he'd been given the privilege of tending to a king. Erwin watched him curiously, wondering at it for as long as he could stand. “Are you okay?”

Levi looked up at him, startled. He'd gotten up the worst of the mess with the towel and was finishing with a cloth dampened from their canteen. “I'm more than okay.” He looked a bit dazed, actually, like he couldn't believe what had happened. Erwin waited for him to mop himself up, then snagged his hand and pulled him gently back into the sleeping bag, tucking him against his body so his head rested on Erwin's chest. Levi sighed, long and deep, and after a moment his leg hooked possessively around one of Erwin's. 

“I love you,” the man said into the comfortable silence. “I'm sure it's obvious since I wouldn't be your mate now if I didn't. But I wanted to say it aloud.”

Levi sat up a little and looked into Erwin's face, still half-disbelieving. “My mate,” he echoed, his fingertips brushing the man's cheekbone like he was checking to see if he was real. “I love you.” He stared for a moment longer before setting his head back down, his chest expanding as he took a deep breath. “You smell like me.”

“I would hope so, considering I took a sponge bath in your scent.”

Levi's laugh was a soundless, exhausted puff of air. “It's a  _ lot.” _

“You seemed to like it at the time.”

“Oh, I still do. That DCA dragon will smell us both from here. And everyone else. There is absolutely no doubt that you're mine.” Levi turned his head a little and kissed the first bit of skin his lips touched. “You're going to reek of me for a long time.” 

“That was the plan.”

Silence lapsed again, a little longer that time. It might have continued indefinitely if a thought hadn't occurred to Erwin. “Where did you learn about prostates?”

The fact that Levi had to think a minute was very, very frightening. “Hanji.”

“Who else?” Erwin asked, resigned. 

“Nanaba and Moblit. A porn website. Did you know that there are people who have tried taking  _ entire _ dragon dicks all the way to the knot?”

“That sounds really unsafe.” Erwin tried to imagine how that wouldn't end in a trip to the hospital. He failed. “What kind of website was this?”

Levi made a small sound to indicate he had no clue, wiggling deeper into the man’s embrace with a jaw-cracking yawn. Erwin lay there and stroked the drake's hair, feeling loose and sleepy as he thought idly, not for the first time, that he needed to have a stern discussion with his friends about the fact that  _ most _ people preferred to keep their private lives private. The silence stretched too far to break and before long, Levi was out cold, his breathing deep and even and content. Erwin didn't particularly want to move, even for breakfast. He struggled with himself, trying to talk himself into getting up, but ultimately he decided that plenty of people skipped breakfast anyway. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was a doozie to write. I started on it the same day I published chapter 40 and I've been hung up on it since. Levi's feelings coming out was ... not planned. It was one of those things that just happened as I was writing, so that added another emotional twist that I've been struggling with. Erwin wasn't going to play with Levi's scars this chapter, either. But. Well. Best laid plans. This chapter is an example of an author losing control of her work. I think it's better than the first version, though.


	42. Small

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erwin and Levi finally take to the air again, but they may not be ahead of the competition.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SOME COOL HAPPENINGS:
> 
> I've been working on developing Wild-Type into an original story with original characters for some time now and I'm excited to say that the first book in the series is DONE! Details can be found on [my tumblr](http://merkase.tumblr.com/post/166029753019/some-important-wild-type-info) if you're interested.
> 
> Or you can skip the details and go [read chapter one](http://kaseydelamer.com/2017/09/17/allure-chapter-one/) on my author site. Woah I have an author site. I feel dizzy.

***************

_ December 11 _

***************

Waking up without an immediate fear to address was an unfamiliar luxury. Erwin allowed the uneventful silence to fold around him like a blanket, stretching his body behind Levi until his muscles quivered happily--sore but well-rested. It would feel nice to be back in the saddle, to feel strength rather than illness surging through Levi as they moved in tandem. Erwin took a few minutes to lie still and watch the drake drool lightly on his shoulder, his smaller chest swelling faintly with every breath he took. He was having a good dream, his cock hard and a little damp against Erwin’s bare thigh. 

The sun wasn’t up yet, but that wouldn’t happen until long after they should be gone. According to Hanji’s charts, the sun wouldn’t rise here until 9:00 and it was--Erwin lit the backlight on their beacon--5:12. Erwin let his hand wander absently over the drake’s sharp hip, tempting the rest of him lower. Carefully, so as not to wake his bedmate, Erwin folded his knees and slid deeper into the sleeping bag where the air was heavy with heat and musk. He breathed Levi in, tucking his nose into the base of the dragon’s cock and allowing his tongue to flick out. 

The drake’s skin held a pleasant hint of salt and something else that Erwin had only tasted on Levi. Maybe he wasn’t as oblivious to pheromones as he’d thought, because he didn’t think there was another person on Earth, dragon or human, that smelled and tasted quite like his new mate. It was faint, but it was probably worth mentioning if for no other reason than to see the self-satisfied look that would cross Levi’s face when Erwin admitted he could detect something of his scent. Tracing a brief trail from the base of Levi’s erection to the tip, Erwin wasted no time readjusting his position and taking the drake into his mouth. 

Levi was slow to wake. His body’s first responses were small and automatic--a tiny thrust, an automatic parting of knees. The drake’s breathing hastened, his fingers curling loosely on empty air. It wasn’t clear where the transition happened, when he became aware that he was not dreaming the heat that engulfed his cock, but he was almost definitely awake when his hands found the crown of Erwin’s head and tensed like they were fighting the impulse to drag him the rest of the way down. He was absolutely awake when a strangled gasp gave way to, “Erwin, shit. Good morning.” 

The man only hummed around Levi’s erection, causing the drake to arch like he’d been shot through with electricity. Erwin found he rather liked that effect, so he did it again. And again. 

“Erwin,” Levi twisted beneath Erwin, his hips jerking unbidden as they sought a slightly quicker tempo. “Please.”

The man understood Levi’s broken plea, abandoning his slow, teasing pressure for something a touch more substantial. His head bobbed steadily between the drake’s legs, which had clenched hard around Erwin’s shoulders like a vice as his hips undulated under the man’s staying hands. The change of pace wrung a delicious arch from Levi’s spine and he cried out, almost in surprise, practically writhing as his attempts to rut down Erwin’s throat were pressed firmly into the bottom of the sleeping bag. “Fuck,” he rasped. “Fuck, fuck,” and it became a sort of desperate litany. Precome slicked the inside of Erwin’s mouth and the man was forced to swallow again and again, the muscles of his throat working around Levi’s straining length.

That was what ultimately finished the drake, his sharp cry cutting off abruptly as his body went completely rigid. It seemed to last forever, despite having spent so much of himself inside of Erwin the previous night. It was truly a wonder the man didn't choke and an even greater wonder that he almost succeeded in swallowing everything. Mental congratulations were in order even if a little of the overflow ended up pooling over Levi's abdomen. 

Assuming he never read the sex chapter, Erwin would have to ask Hanji about the sudden increase in volume if he ever got drunk enough to broach the topic. He suspected that the doctor would have an answer for him and he  _ suspected _ it would get him uncomfortably tight in the trousers. He’d finished himself before Levi’s body relaxed, shamefully quick to fall over the edge at the touch of his own hand. He hadn’t come that quickly since he was a teenager. Erwin kept his lips tight as he relinquished Levi’s softening cock, ensuring that little mess remained. Looking up the drake’s heaving chest, he made sure that their eyes met before he licked his lips clean, pushing a stray rivulet of come up his chin and into his mouth. 

“What a messy dragon.” Erwin bent his head and tended to Levi's abdomen, noting only the tiniest ripple of tension as he dipped his tongue into a couple scars chasing the heady taste of salt and Levi. “Good morning,” he added belatedly. 

Levi’s smirk was decidedly debauched. He let one of his arms fall somewhere over his head, unintentionally completing the image. “Did you finish?” 

Erwin pulled his own come-slick hand from between his legs. “Quickly.” He pressed his palm to Levi’s navel and traced a hot line upwards to one of his nipples, drawing a circle even as he bent to follow the trail with his tongue, licking the skin clean again as Levi squirmed. He lingered on Levi’s nipple, grazing the skin lightly with his teeth as his fingers played around his rib cage where four parallel gouges left a suggestion of dragon’s claws. Erwin set his fingers into them and rubbed lightly, enjoying the texture. It drew an oddly content sigh from the drake, his fingers moving to fiddle with Erwin’s hair as he watched with sleepy, half-lidded eyes. “You’re beautiful,” the man said honestly, letting his head fall somewhere just shy of Levi’s clavicle. 

“Mm. So you’ve said.” The drake sounded languid, his fingers carding sluggishly through Erwin’s hair. It was the kind of thing that could easily put a man to sleep. 

As such, it was a long moment before Erwin mumbled, “Stating facts.”

“Your hand is still filthy.” Levi nudged Erwin's cheek with a shrug of his shoulder. “And the venom has worn off. We can fly today.”

“I was hoping you'd say that.” Erwin pushed himself upright, shivering a little as the heat started ebbing out of him. “By the time we break camp it will be light enough to travel if you want to get an early start on our early start.”

“We don't know how much distance is left between us and the closest of our competitors. They might have already passed us.” If that was the case, Levi intended to fly all out and reclaim their lead. He had that determined set to his mouth. Erwin leaned in and kissed it just because he could, using the same momentum to get up and move himself over to their bags. He tossed Levi a fresh set of underwear and a liner, wiggling quickly into his own clothes with a heartfelt shiver. 

“It's unlikely they have much of a lead on us if they have any at all,” Erwin assured him. “Still, if you're ready to hit the ground running today I think it would be wise to do so. We’ve already learned that this race requires an expectation of unexpected detours.”

“Yeah.” Levi was putting his clothes on  _ in _ the sleeping bag, bundled up to his nose as he shuffled around unhappily layering on fabric like armor. Erwin took pity on the chilly drake and passed him his leathers when he was ready for them. “I want to hit the damned arctic and get as far south of this white-capped shitpile as I can.”

“Our original plan to travel only during the day isn’t going to work here, either,” Erwin said. “I was looking over our charts last night and we should pass into the Yukon sometime in the next several hours, probably around late morning. Whitehorse gets almost six hours of daylight today and that number is going to dwindle as we push north. Inuvik, for example, will be dark all day, as will the coast of the Beaufort Sea.”

They’d explained to Levi, or tried to explain, why the curvature of the Earth meant that day and night were not always roughly equal. Hanji’s highly technical version had probably confused him without a proper globe to look at for the explanation, but he seemed to accept it as one of those strange things about the world that just happened because that was the way it worked. That didn’t mean he liked it, and he scowled mightily at Erwin’s statement. “Those are the names of towns? Who would accept such living conditions?” he wanted to know, parting reluctantly from his sleeping bag and moving to help pack up. 

“People who aren’t dragons, I suspect. Also, the sky gets beautiful up here, so there's that. Hanji said it should be a decent year for auroras so we should see it before we go.” 

“Lights in the sky?” Levi asked skeptically. “We can see those where we live.” 

They’d explained the auroras to him as well, but they’d mutually agreed not to show him pictures so he’d been imagining something like starlight and hadn’t been very interested. It wasn’t worth the cold to him. Erwin only shrugged enigmatically and moved on. There were a lot of layers to put on this time. He’d be wearing the most clothing he ever had in his life, layer after layer of protection from the cold. No part of his body was exempt. He was already perspiring at the center of his back, but there wouldn’t be another chance to dress for the arctic before they got there and he would be glad for it when they arrived.

“It’s a little under a thousand miles to the coast, so we’re looking at sixteen hours of continuous flight just to get there. If we make it and then turn all the way back around, that gets doubled to thirty-two. We’re not going to make a jump like that without setting down to rest.” 

_ “Watch _ me,” Levi mumbled, but there was no conviction in it. 

Erwin knew he was being conservative with their numbers. He’d calculated them using an average dragon’s comfortable flight speed of sixty miles per hour. It had been a mistake not to clock Levi when it occurred to them that he was faster than most, but perhaps even then it hadn’t occurred to anyone  _ how _ much faster he really was. Judging by the rapid distance he’d put between himself and the other racers at the starting line, his natural flight speed could be closer to eighty or ninety. When he was flying with a purpose, it wouldn’t be too far beyond the scope of reason to assume that he could pull another twenty. Erwin’s mind shied away from the bewildered echo of,  _ one hundred miles per hour. One hundred and ten.  _ Just assuming eighty, they’d reach the arctic in twelve hours, which did seem a lot more manageable than sixteen. 

“What we can do is travel for about six or eight hours and set down for an early lunch. We’ll likely need to pitch the tent but it would allow us to shave a little off of that final flying time so it would be worth it if you could get a nap in.” 

“We won’t have time to make camp. Six hours north is going to be a lot colder than here and I was already feeling the pull of hibernation before we made camp. I can’t hold heat in my human form the way I can as a dragon so I’ll start slowing down a lot quicker if I stop and shift, especially if I’m not moving around.”

Erwin nodded. “We’ll pull out the sleeping bags and find a place out of the wind for a fire, then. Between my heat and the sleeping bags you should stay warm enough.” Erwin pulled a second beanie hat over his first and tucked his full executioner’s hood over that while Levi went through their belongings, packing some items and pulling out others. Clothing was tossed in Erwin’s general direction and two meal bars set aside along with their batteries, which Erwin then spent a few moments with, finding various places close to his body to tuck them before pausing to unwrap his protein bar. “I wonder if the landscape up there would make hunting easier.”

Levi shrugged. “How would we butcher anything?”

“Be on the lookout for smaller things and we can just carry them with us. Foxes and hares will be moving around.” He rather doubted they’d be stealthy enough to catch either of those things from the air, but trying couldn’t hurt.  

Levi snorted, but didn’t say agree with the unspoken doubt. He ate as he packed, chilly and ready to move. Erwin put on his aviation goggles and layered on the last couple of things--two different types of earmuff and a truly formidable number of scarves. When he added his liners and gloves, no part of his skin would be left exposed to the cold. 

Erwin took the tent down while Levi emptied the ashes from their stove, metal clanging loudly against metal as he broke it down into portable pieces. Only the slightest wash of displaced air announced it when the drake shifted, his whole body rolling into a surprisingly dog-like shake as he filled his flame bladder to try throwing off some of the cold. He huffed a thin trail of simmering air from his nostrils and stretched cobwebs from his wings, his broad chest glowing with internal heat. 

“How long can you hold that before it burns through your flame bladder?” Erwin asked, and Levi turned to look at him with one enormous, elliptical eye, unimpressed. He crouched for the saddle, then stood for the buckles, practically vibrating under Erwin’s efficient hands. “Hold still,” the man laughed, tugging on the last strap to make sure it was secure. “Alright. Now.” 

The drake crouched again, snow hissing beneath his glowing chest as Erwin swung a leg over him and settled. “Ready.”

Levi coiled like a spring and was off, tearing up the snow as he took off at a short run, his wings opening to lift them skyward. At first, Erwin waited for them to turn. They’d taken off towards the fence where there was enough open space for a dragon to clamber into the air, but once Levi was high enough, he didn’t stop, skimming over the top of fence and heading back the way they came.

“Levi?”

The other end of the fence loomed, just over three miles from end to end. It was a small trap they’d landed in, but it had cost them a day of the race and at least a year off their lives. The drake’s ribs collapsed in a rush of searing heat as he banked hard and released his flame bladder over the forest below. Ribs swelled, and dragonfire bloomed again, again, again. Levi made pass after pass, turning elegant circles in the air until everything inside of the fences burned. He flew low, fanning flames with his wings and encouraging the blaze to spread even as he surveyed his handiwork with an air of malicious glee. Some of the weasels  _ might _ survive his fiery retribution beneath the ground, but Erwin doubted it. Their burrows had been shallow and the melting snow would flood them quickly.

“Feel better?”

Levi chirruped happily beneath him--a good start to the day--and veered back the way they came, using the warm thermal from his own fire to press higher. He’d taken personal exception to the thought of anyone passing them while they struggled, it seemed, because he tore forward with a passion to regain any lead they might have lost. In the air, he was unstoppable. He paused only when they hit updrafts and he opened his wings to glide, taking an opportunity to rest as they climbed higher. In the dark, it was safest to climb as high as they could. The air was thinner, but it didn’t seem to bother Levi in spite of his exertions and he kept them well clear of the treacherous mountain sprawl. 

Six hours in, Levi showed no sign of tiring and the temperature took a swift dive even as the sun rolled heavily over the horizon and hung there like it couldn’t find the energy to keep rising. Erwin had just made up his mind to fly a little farther into the afternoon before resting when the landscape beneath them unfolded and a frozen valley opened to reveal a splash of yellow against the uniform white. Levi rocked minutely to the left, drifting lower as curiosity got the better of him.

The campsite was utterly still. In that barren winter silence, the only creature making noise was Levi himself, the slow beat of his wings and the soft exhalations of his breath as he took in deep, quick lungfuls of air, testing for scents. It was the stillness that almost allowed Erwin to overlook the obvious missing element. The tent had a chimney for a wood-burning stove, but no smoke issued from it. 

“Levi, we need to land!” He called up quickly. The drake aimed an incredulous glance over his shoulder, but tipped them into a gentle turn and glided back to the camp. “Stay in your dragon form. I should only be a minute.” Erwin dropped from the saddle and shook out his aching limbs. His backside was taking quite the beating and his pain only had a  _ little _ bit to do with how thoroughly the drake had filled him the night before. He still hadn’t built up much of a resistance to the abuses of the saddle. “Hello?” he called as he approached the tent. “I’m here to check up on you. I didn’t see any smoke from your chimney and thought it seemed a little dangerous.” He waited politely just outside the tent flap, frowning back at Levi when no response was forthcoming. “Hello?” He asked a little louder.

Levi shuffled up behind him, shifting his weight uneasily and breathing in to fill his flame bladder. No one attacked them, though. Erwin strained his ears for it, but couldn’t hear a single thing from within the tent--not a rustle of fabric or a whisper of breath. He reached for the zipper and peeled the tent open and when he poked his head cautiously inside it was no warmer than it was outside. Neither of the bundled occupants moved to address his intrusion, even when he called out to them a second time. Pushing the tent flap aside, Erwin stepped in, earning himself a grumpy growl from the drake left out front as the canvas fell back into place and blocked him from view. A moment later, a scaly snout shoved its way past the obstruction, filling the entire doorway. 

Recognition twitched somewhere in the back of his mind as Erwin’s eyes fell on a female face, but he couldn’t place her. She was tucked around the stove like she’d been seeking its warmth, but its belly was full of long-cold ashes. So, they’d had a fire at one point. It must have gone out in the night. The pair had suffered for it, too. The young woman’s face was horribly pale and unmistakably blue around the lips and eyes. Frost clung to her lashes. Erwin pulled one of his gloves off and held his fingers below her nose, then pressed them to her jugular. When that proved equally as inconclusive, he lifted one of her eyelids to reveal the milky iris beneath. “She’s dead.” 

He recognized the other sleeper immediately. His face wasn’t quite so altered as the dragon’s, though he still looked awful. A quick breath test revealed that he was still alive, but his body was shutting down all the same, long past shivering. “It’s that rude fellow from the orientation tent. Remember him?”

Levi’s snort clearly said,  _ Good riddance,  _ but he didn’t seem at all surprised when Erwin went fishing in the sleeping bag for the man’s arm, coming up with his beacon and finding the button that would summon help. He replaced the stiff limb with less care.

“At this rate, I doubt they’ll get to him in time, but we can’t leave without at least giving him a chance.” Erwin put his glove back on and reached into the stove to sweep out the ashes. He stacked some of their firewood into the empty cavern and stepped back out with one of the limbs in his hand. “Would you mind?” 

Levi pulled his lip back in a sneer, but he turned his head to spit into the snow. His flame didn’t last long, but Erwin was able to scoop some of the slippery oils onto the end of his stick and carry it back to light the rest. He lingered only until he’d seen that it caught, then he returned to Levi, unwilling to share any more space with the dying man and his dragon’s corpse. It would have been a logical place for Erwin and Levi to take their own break, but the tent felt more like a tomb than a refuge and it hadn’t warmed yet anyhow. Levi shoved his forehead into the center of Erwin’s chest, nearly knocking him flat on his ass. 

“I guess we’ll be sleeping in shifts until the weather gets warmer.” Erwin stroked the drake’s heavy jaw bones--one with each hand. “Do you want to move on or stay for a little while?”

Levi crouched and lifted a wing expectantly. 

“Yeah, me either.” Erwin climbed back into the saddle and let Levi carry them farther north.

*

The way they travelled, they only had a scant handful of hours before the sun gave up its feeble struggle and plopped back down below the horizon. Erwin had never been so far north and his system didn't know what to do with the brief day. “That's it,” he called up to Levi. “We won't see it again for a while.” 

The drake let out one of those terrifying, inhuman screams, making Erwin jump in the saddle. The detective could practically hear him saying,  _ fuck nature, fuck the sun, fuck winter.  _

It was back to flying high after that. Erwin checked their beacon often, stretching one leg out to the side, then another, rubbing his arms. He fidgeted, trying to keep blood moving in his body, but ultimately when he set them down for a rest amongst the deep crags of a splintered rock formation he was cold and stiff. Levi left him there to ready a sleeping bag for them while he flew farther down to collect wood. It wouldn't take very much. They would only be there for a few hours at most and Levi had been correct. They did not have time to set up the tent. The drake returned quickly with mouth and talons full, dropping everything and slinking over to huddle as close to the rocks as he could while Erwin figured it out from there. The wind could not reach them where they were, making it feel immediately warmer. Still, Levi's chest glowed faintly in the dark as he held his flame bladder full. 

Erwin worked quickly, actually arranging four piles of wood in tight, even circle around them. He put them as close as he could without creating an immediate fire hazard leaving their extra in the center to feed them with. 

“Don't light the middle one.”

The drake cracked open a miserable eye, turning to spit flames over each waiting pile and shift quickly into his human form, which dropped immediately into a shuddering crouch.  _ “Fuck!”  _

Erwin wasted no time gathering him up in a sleeping bag, boots and all. He put that bundle inside of the other sleeping bag, then climbed into the outside one, angling them so that the surrounding fires warmed his back and Levi's front. Sandwiched between Erwin and their fires, Levi burrowed down to Erwin's chest and vanished like a turtle, shivering hard against him for a long time. The detective worried about that, anxious that he'd made the wrong call by insisting they land for a rest. When the wracking tremors eased up, Erwin pulled the outside sleeping bag over his head and addressed the grouchy bundle between his knees. 

“You aren't going to hibernate are you?”

“No, I'm warming up. It's a goddamn Christmas miracle.”

Erwin's relief was immediate and intense. “Please try to sleep. I'm staying up to watch the fires.” He wiggled a little deeper into the sleeping bag, though, tucking his body around Levi. 

“You should save a little time to take your own shift,” Levi told him, but Erwin shook his head. 

“Any time we have on the ground is time I want you using. I can tie myself off and doze in the saddle as we fly. Not for long, but it would be enough.” Erwin checked their latitude on the beacon and spent a few minutes repeating the number in his head as he stroked Levi through the heavy material between them. They would likely need to take a similar break as they came back down and he didn't want to stop them any farther north than that point. It was almost too cold as it was. 

The fires did make it several hours before they were down to their last sticks. Erwin fed them hurriedly into the cheerful flames and wiggled back into Levi to wait out the last of their warmth. He found it was much, much warmer with his own head completely inside of the sleeping bag, so he kept to that pattern, occasionally checking the time in the dark just to give himself something to do. Levi slept soundly and did not stir even as the fires burned low and the temperature began to fall. He simply rolled over and buried his face into Erwin and went right on sleeping. 

“Levi,” the man said softly, reluctantly. They had a little more time, but the cold would start sinking in soon and Levi's sleep could turn into something more long-term before Erwin caught it. He'd bought them a good four hours of rest and that would have to be enough. He nudged the sleeping drake, whose fingers curled in the front of Erwin's leathers as he moaned. “Levi, it's time to go.”

The drake whined pitifully. 

“Come on. The sooner we reach the arctic, the sooner we can get home and take a really hot bath in Mike’s fancy garden tub.”

“It's a what tub?” Levi murmured, stirring reluctantly. 

“It isn't actually outside. That's just what they're called. They have jets that make the water bubble.”

“Holy shit, I miss civilization.” Wiggling up Erwin's body, the drake found him in the dark and pressed his lips blindly to Erwin's chin. “Oops.”

Erwin laughed, tipping his head so that their lips met properly when Levi tried again. It was a slow, lingering kiss. The drake swiped at Erwin's mouth with his tongue until his lips parted to allow him in for a leisurely exploration. “How many hours until I can kiss you again?” Levi asked as he pulled back. 

“A while, unless you want to risk our mouths freezing together. We could romantically rub our noses together, though. I think that's supposed to signify a kiss in these parts.”

“Jesus.”

Erwin kissed him again, once, because he was unable to resist the dim line of his pout, then pulled the edge of the sleeping bag down to look out. And stare. “Levi.”

“Hm?”

“Look.”

The drake's body actually jerked in surprise.  _ “What in the  _ fuck--”

“It's the aurora we told you about. Lights in the sky.”

Levi's small, strangled sound spoke volumes. He relaxed against Erwin, turning to look straight up at it with enormous eyes. Erwin pulled the sleeping bag up over their noses, his legs tucking closer to the drake to preserve some of their remaining warmth. The lights twisted across the sky on their invisible tracks, blue and  _ red  _ and so incredible that Levi actually bared his face to the harsh winter air to watch them. “Is it safe?”

“I’ve never heard of it being dangerous.”

_ “How  _ is this possible?”

“I only understood a part of Hanji’s explanation. It has something to do with the sun shooting gasses into space that hit our atmosphere and release extra energy in the form of light. The lines they follow are part of Earth’s magnetic field.”

“... Huh …”

“Yeah. The explanation was terrifying, honestly. Apparently the solar storms that cause those gasses would incinerate the planet without a magnetic field to shield us. You see light at the poles because the fields are weakest here and some of the gasses make it through to our atmosphere. A small percentage.”

“So,” Levi mused slowly, “the pretty lights are actually sun farts trying to set us all on fire and just about succeeding?”

“That's how I understood it.”

The drake sighed. “I'm not sure why I expected anything less from the arctic.” But Levi was transfixed all the same. Knowing what it was didn't make it any less incredible to sit under. It was a good place to feel small and to be grateful that neither of them had to be small on their own. 

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys! I've been developing this idea for a few months now and I'm so excited to finally push it out of the nest. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy writing it. :D Comments and critiques are always welcome and if you'd like to look me up on tumblr you can find me [right here.](http://merkase.tumblr.com/) I hope to illustrate some of this eventually, so that will live on tumblr as well. Happy reading! <3


End file.
